#cr transcript

[revvethasmythh]

Scanlan used a 9th-level counterspell to defeat Vecna and, in doing so, was unable to save Vax, in campaign 1 episode 114. In campaign 3 episode 114, he was able to free the beacon from the machine keeping Vax imprisoned and finally save him

[sky-scribbles]

Bell's Hells: Hey Essek, do you know anything about these three dead bodies?

Essek: Haha yeah, my friends and I addled their minds with crippling pain, threw them down a hundred and fifty foot cliff, and blasted them with like 200 psychic damage. Then we stabbed them a lot.

Bell's Hells:

Essek: Anyway, tiny gnome man, don't be like them :)

[ludinusdaleth]

Travis *jokingly*: “Yeah but what about Molaesmyr?”

Matt: “That shook—that caught him off guard, man."

travis hits ludinus's sore spot in both campaigns

Critical Role Campaign 2, Episode 88, "Unwanted Reunions" // Critical Role Campaign 3, Episode 102, "Reconciliation"

[hello-eeveev]

I adored the scene between Orym and the Wildmother. I thought it was beautiful. they cannot make me hate either of them. but of course I must take it upon myself to address some responses to it that I’ve seen floating about, especially bc the way some people talk about emotions makes me concerned:

1) an appeal to emotion is not inherently manipulative. it’s a normal part of communication, and treating it as “playing dirty” will negatively affect yourself and your relationships with others. trust me. you are allowed to express your feelings, and other people are allowed to take your feelings into account and adjust their behavior. it’s actually a good thing! that’s healthy communication!

2) “see you soon” is not a death wish, nor is it a firm belief that he will die in the upcoming battle. it’s an acknowledgement that on the grand, cosmic scale of time, their separation is only for a short while. I suppose it would depend on the belief in an afterlife of the people around you, but have you never heard this sentiment expressed? not once?

[ittybittyremy]

imagine how dorian felt during that whole kerfuffle

Two days ago, his brother died and the Crown Keepers separated, all because of the Spider Queen.

A couple of hours ago, he and Orym reminisced about how Orym put a blade to his chest and told him not to put the crown on his head. Something that Dorian is clearly grateful for now. ("Otherwise, I wouldn't be here right now")

Now, he woke up to two of his friends fighting. Then, Laudna claims that the blade on Orym's back will corrupt him "just like it corrupted Otohan." He's still catching up on everything, but he knows that's the name of the person who killed Orym's husband and father. To put it simply, he just heard that Orym may become corrupt like his family's killer was because of a sword.

And here's the thing: He's seen a real cursed item before. He's felt the lure of one and has seen/experienced the consequences of holding onto one. His brother's death was one of those consequences 2 days ago! And now there's apparently another cursed item that's on his "very good friend's" back. The same "very good friend" who he just talked about the crown with. The same "very good friend" who put a blade to his chest so long ago.

Then later, it turns out that the item Laudna was so insistent on being cursed (to the point of injuring another party member [be it unintentional]) is actually not cursed.

Now he's listening to Laudna talk about how she wants to take the blade in energy while belittling Orym for taking it in hand. (Yes, I am aware that this is very simplified)

After all this, Dorian finally gives his opinion.

I think [Orym] should keep it. It's just a thing. I'm so tired of things having control over us. You two are friends. It was his to possess and you tried to steal it from him... It is just a thing. Its history doesn't shape us. Our actions do. [Laudna's] actions tell me that [she did] not have enough trust in [her] friends... What would it have mattered if [Otohon] cut him down with a handaxe or a stick from the street? It was not the thing that did the action. It was the person. It does not matter.

I believe that there are two routes to Dorian's mindset

Gilmore's Wisdom: When the Crown Keepers discuss the circlet with Gilmore, he says something very interesting. "The Spider Queen herself is dark, is evil, but the vestige is simply power, and it is whatever you make it into. Power simply is." (E1x03).

Orym's Threat: Orym confronted him when he saw that he could hold the circlet without issue. He put a sword to his chest and told him to put it down. Dorian did so, saying, "I care about you more than this" (E1x05).

Dorian's point is a combination of those two things. To put it simply, Dorian's point was that friends are more important than objects because objects are just things.

And before I see anyone else blabbering about how Dorian is a hypocrite because of how Cyrus died, Opal didn't kill him, and neither did the circlet itself. It was the Spider Queen that killed him.

During all this, he discovered that Orym, Fearne, Laudna, and Chetney had died due to the blade. He also discovered that Orym made a deal with Fearne's grandmother "to help [them] do the things that [they] have to do. Hopefully in the next episode, Dorian is able to fully process all that information

Side Note: In between those words, Dorian admits that he doesn't fully understand the situation ("You do not know what you speak." "I do not"). Apparently, this is a hot take, but I think that him being the outsider of the situation made him the most clear-headed of the group. He wasn't hurt by Ottahan like the rest of Bells Hells had been. So, he has the least biased view of the bunch (still biased but not as biased as the others).

Thank you for coming to my TedTalk!

[essektheylyss]

"You're going to have to make a lot of babies..." -> "You're like his dad!"

[utilitycaster]

Not that I agree with Ludinus, but can I point out that if he did go around searching for information like a normal person, Vasselheim would have just sent someone to deal with him?

Hi anon,

I'm not sure what this is in response to? I think this might be for a post I reblogged, in which case I would recommend you confer with the OP of that post to best understand their intentions and perspective.

Anyway, you can point that out, and have, but I think Vasselheim would only pursue him if he specifically tried to steal information from Vasselheim. He could probably authorize raids on any temple within the Empire without any retaliation, he demonstrably can seize control of archaeological sites, he did straight up steal the Omen Archive from the Grim Verity and Vasselheim's specific response and motivations are unclear (were they chasing him for that, or for, you know, the giant-ass Magic Moon Antenna in the desert), and more generally he's a 900 year old archmage who could have spent the past 600 years developing an elaborate infiltration system for every single academic or religious institution in Exandria if he were willing to actually build a loyal and dedicated heist crew instead of a system of underlings who high-key fucking hate him.

I think many people vastly overestimate the reach and involvement of Vasselheim. I know I made a joke about the Dragon Vatican but actually the way religion and worship works in Exandria seems rather decentralized. Vasselheim hasn't, for example, declared war on the Dwendalian Empire for outlawing half the Prime Deities. If Ludinus physically infiltrated Vasselheim, stole stuff, and was noticed, then yeah, Vasselheim would retaliate, but that's by no means the only way to do research on the gods.

[inktrailing]

C3E100 SPOILERS

A planetar with a lot of angry things to say / Twitch 03:02:10

this is a long one but I wanted to do this part okay ... also I have an empty brain right now and transcribing is mindless work for me but I think I'm done now

The Raven Queen: "Who sent you?"

Garathran: "I come under my own power. Those that command me tossed aside their scepter of command, tossed aside their very ideals, values, that which they had sworn to do. I followed my commander here."

Corellon, the Arch Heart: "And who is your commander?"

Garathran: "My commander... is the solar Acastriel. I am Garathran. I am a planetar sworn to the service of the Celestial Heights."

Corellon, the Arch Heart: "So, why are you here?"

Garathran: (to Corellon) "Mortal form, I suppose generous in the body of a construct." (to the Raven Queen) "And I suppose that is not your first time wearing mortal form. After all, these rules and edicts are not for you, are they? And never were. What binds you that so binds us? What binds you?"

Corellon, the Arch Heart: "Oh dear. You're getting angry now."

Garathran: "I have been angry. One by one, quiet, the Calamity fading, this great destruction, Domunas gone. Marquet burned, Exandrians dead, us marching to war over and over and over again for those that cannot die and seem unwilling to kill each other."

Corellon, the Arch Heart: "Hmmm."

Garathran: "Cries of misery and destruction were not enough to stay your hands! What stayed the hands of the gods? What called truce between you and the--" (sputters)

And here, before he can even say 'Betrayers', you watch a Celestial, crafted to defeat the forces of evil, made be your hands to fight in holy war, who has been left for years without your guidance or instruction in a truce you called.

Garathran: "What did you think? What did you think would happen when word spread throughout the Celestial ranks? That we would wait for slaughter to commence again after the threat to you, and you alone, had been destroyed? I find you sickening."

And you see here that a little bit of fire moves around the edge of the planetar's eyes.

The Raven Queen: "You speak of things you don't understand, child."

Garathran: (scoffs) "I'm not a child. I'm a construct, only a real one."

Corellon, the Arch Heart: (laughs) "Come. Let me embrace you." The skin begins to almost thread its way towards his fingers as he begins pulling the fire and trying to almost take the anger out of the situation.

You reach out in an attempt to alleviate this. You see that Garathran steps back and says -

Garathran: "Don't take it!! It's mine! Please don't take it. You made us to be good. You made us to fight. It was supposed to be right. Sealing the Betrayers, putting them in the shadows again. I have slain devils for a century thinking it was right and then one day I'm told to sheath my sword.

"And Acastriel comes to us who wonder why and says, 'Do you know what they are doing? Do you know what they're doing? It's a war to us. To them, it is a squabble.' Why did you make us? Why did you make all of this? When you knew that you were hurting this world, why didn't you just leave?"

Corellon, the Arch Heart: "Look. I must say that you are caught in something that obviously is difficult. It's completely incomprehensible to you. I see your pain. I feel it. And you know, sometimes I even ask myself: why are we doing this? This fighting, constant bickering, it's endless. But sometimes, there's a beauty in not understanding. You just play by the rules, as one of my favorites would say. Ignorance can be bliss.

"Now hear me, and hear me very, very carefully. This threat, this thing that threatens us will soon threaten you, and there is no end. At least with us, there is some form of control. It's just the way things are. So please, humor us. What do you know of your time being here, of this thing that threatens the very existence of us?

"And I promise you, we will give you purpose back, for you are our children after all."

Garathran: "With deference to the hands that move creation, if you wanted to make us to serve the gods, you should not have made us good."

(Garathran reaches up and slits his own throat.) And the planetar falls to the ground, dead.

[radcaduceus]

cr transcript search has me emotional…

[revvethasmythh]

It actually feels very meaningful when Laudna tells Orym, "You wield a blade gifted by the Voice of the Tempest, why would want this wretched thing?" and Orym pauses for a long second before saying, "The blade's from my family, first."

Whether this was intentional or a slip of memory, Laudna does not know the origin of Orym's sword. She connected it to a gift from a powerful political figure, not from Orym's husband, who gave it to him and is the reason he still carries it as a poignant connection to a lost loved one and also a reminder of what the Vanguard has taken from him and countless others. Paired with her asking him, "Why do you care so much?" and Orym turning to the others to answer for him because he's made it very clear for a very long time why, exactly, he cares so much, it feels telling that Laudna is not actually considering and/or aware of the place he's coming from in this conversation.

She doesn't even know where Seedling came from.

[immult]

4sd was ALL OVER THE PLACE but marisha gave us fuel: laudna fearing becoming alive because she's been so used to being dead and fearing it'll change her forever, and even refusing to do it if there's even a 1% chance delilah comes back with her.

WAHOOO YIPEEEEE!!!!!!!

[blorbologist]

dorian, morrighan, and dariax - freedom, longing, devotion

[I'm sorry there's no Morrighan and uh very little longing in this. Three characters is a Lot and I had very specific Thoughts I wanted to explore after yesterday's episode. Because I'm a biologist and spiders are really cool. Will edit once I get access to transcripts to clean things up! Also available on AO3.]

[TW for a lot, a lot of mention of spiders.]

Do you remember the first time you saw, oh, a butterfly? Or a mouse, or a grasshopper, anything as benign as that? Probably not. They’re parts of the periphery of life that stop really standing out once you’ve seen them once or twice. Maybe once they were subject of stories - omens of change, or a brave needle-wielding warrior, sage little advisors - but now just swift movement in a busy world. 

Dorian remembers the first time he saw a spider, because it was so - it was just - well, it went a little like this:

He was outside and quite small, made all the smaller by the big wide sky around him. The endless (at the time) tends were constricting, and all he remembers about the why is that he had to be out there. For some reason that left him red-eyed and stormy-haired.

And while staring at the white clouds and white-blue beyond and white glare of the sun, and really getting a bit cross-eyed, something very little drifted by. Even smaller than him, if you can believe it. 

It was a grain of rice, or two, with delicate hairs - or, nope, those were legs - holding onto a cloud just its size. Drifting in the sky without a worry. Dorian would have been very worried, if he was this thing, because it was really being thrown into loops and dives and almost hanging, still, when the wind got tired of playing with it.

So little Dorian held out his hand and caught it. 

It, you might have guessed, was a tiny spider. Slowly moving over his hand, like it was dizzy. Or maybe just tired. 

Being a child - no, more than that, being Brontë - had immediately forgotten whatever had him in a state to find Cyrus. That’s when he learned this was a spider, a baby spider tossed around on the breeze to find a new home.

He’d decided this would be its home. Put it in a little jar with what twigs and leaves could be tossed to this altitude. 

Dorian never did find out if it escaped. Or if it died, perfect little legs curled into a fist. 

--

It’s weird, how many stories have spiders as the villains. Terrible glutted things guarding secret passages, or lying to brave adventurers, or pulling silk-strings of their puppets to make them dance. Dorian thought it unfair - it’s not like spiders were that bad. They were fragile, and quite pretty, and with talent matching the finest weavers he’d seen. Maybe it was artistic envy, to paint them as the worst in every story?

Sorry - it was weird, back then. Dorian knows better now. There’s a little grain of truth in every tale, after all. It turns out this one is not a grain of rice, but the girth of a god.

Dariax was staring at him. Or, well - he couldn’t be sure of that. Because his eyes were still inky black, the shiny abdomen of a bloated specimen. But Dorian definitely felt stared at. Angling his handheld mirror revealed not even the littlest blemish. 

He still tasted black ooze at the back of his teeth. It reminded him of when a fly launches itself at the back of your throat at mock-fuckyou and gives you both a bad time. Except he wanted to enjoy the flavor. 

That tang was in his mouth as he matched the lullaby. On his tongue during the nightmare, too.

Dorian glances away. The Circlet is still in the center of their camp. With all the spindly thorns, he can’t decide if it looks like its legs are folded neatly beneath it, or if they’re thrown up in the air. 

--

Dorian notices spiders more, now. He’s not sure if it’s true for anyone else. He definitely doesn’t ask Opal about it.

But the dainty little creatures are a lot less innocent to him. Noticing them more means seeing their habits too: how they’ll sit motionless in their webs. Or methodically repair their tapestries. He’s seen them hunt now, too. They never seem to fail: the fly or butterfly or mayfly or dragonfly tangles in the web and then it’s over. And then everything goes still again.

Others watch him, scrambling away when he moves. Those have the biggest eyes, he finds, and almost fly from perch to perch. Light little windwalkers, just like him.

All of this should scare him, it really fucking should. Something deep in the back of his head shivers and recoils. This is dangerous, the stories say. We taught you to fear this. Please do, please do.

Dorian’s tongue pokes, just behind the rightmost molar, and he tastes the bile again. And he can’t do anything but admire them, and what they have, and what they do.

Opal sits a little more still, now. But not quite still enough, he thinks. And she moves erratically, like four limbs are four too few, and - gods, it’s awful. He has to dust out his mind to keep it free of cobwebs. 

He catches himself each time. Or most of the time. And he always turns to Cyrus, and nudges him into a conversation, and studiously ignores the eight eyes watching them both.

--

Spiders don’t eat like this, he knows it, he knows it, he knows it, he’s seen it. 

They restrain and wrap and pierce and and and they leave something whole behind. A little husk you can pretend is a beetle or a moth if you don’t look closely enough. He’s seen it a dozen times. 

He can’t stop seeing his brother in two pieces. He can’t really pretend otherwise. The little bugs, they don't scream. They didn't. He did. He did, his brother did.

And the spiders, the spiders - spider in the purest sense of the word, unhindered by what the world demands of them to survive, uniform. With no place but as villains. 

What does that make Opal? Royalty, probably, outfitted in a bombastic black carapace like a ballgown, skittering legs like a train. The spiders around her like attendants; Fy’ra at her side, making her and the gems gleam with sick light from her hair. A Champion. If there’s one thing villains have going for them, it’s being the star of every fable they show up in.

It could have been him. 

No, not really. Male spiders are disposable - they’re tentative little things looking for love, and then dying quite happily if they get it right or in really, really awful ways if they get it wrong. And maybe that’s not necessarily all that different to him (go to Orym). 

He got the sense Lolth wanted something a little more effective. She’d have eaten him alive. Or Dariax. Or - 

(He can’t say Or Cyrus. Can’t when he’s half-sure that’s what’s happening now.)

Everything hurts. Dorian isn’t sure if it’s from the running or the fighting or the pain in his heart that stretches outward with every breath. Pooling in his temples, the back of his throat, his stomach, his lungs. He wants to cry, but he’s half-sure that if he does webs will pour out. 

So he chokes on the feeling, swallows it whole, and keeps moving. Dorian imagines it burning, lit on fire and shriveling. 

And yet Dariax has no idea what to do. No idea? Like vengeance isn’t the answer, like Cyrus’ body and Opal’s everything weren’t played with by this thing. Like if he doesn’t keep twisting and billowing he’ll be still, and that feeling will come back. 

The strings of his lute feel like web, pulled taut. Wonderful. The tapestry a quiet beauty no longer, given a voice by his hand. What had he thought, about spiders and artists? "Let's put the question in a song," Dorian says, and places it in Dariax's lap. 

Last Dorian tried - tried getting the answer in the form of a tune - it had been the eerie Undercommon lullaby that draped the inside of his head. 

The Spider Queen did have designs on Dariax too, once upon a time. Made his cheerful eyes blank and black, made him wake and sleep back to back with Dorian. But apparently he was still blind, still deaf to the worst of it. Deaf to more than that, actually - Dorian winces at the first painful strum of his poor, poor instrument. But Dariax does not echo that lullaby. 

"I don't know if I'm in a place right now to be fighting gods and monsters," Dariax says, and Dorian smiles and laughs and looks away and anything to not reply we're not in a place to do otherwise. We're already caught in their web. Don't you see?

He feels venomous. Maybe that's what the bile was all along: a deadly little bite of his own. If they're in a web, they'll need a sharp blade to cut it.

Go to Orym, she said (who is she anymore?). Find the Tempest. And he will, he will, this little windwalker will bring the wrath of the storms on these gods and monsters and monsters who are gods. A fitting bookend, given how all this started. 

His hand curls into a fist, a delicate and useless little fist, and he turns invisible. 

[hello-eeveev]

I’m rotating the “his name is Bren, and he is very intelligent” scene in my head again, but not for the reason you think.

Essek’s vibes in that scene are very different compared the ostensibly similar interaction from episode 95: Essek makes passing reference to a partner, Bells Hells inquires further, Essek answers. But while his response in e95 exudes warmth and affection, now he is strangely… matter-of-fact? oddly serious? distracted? without apparent cause for this change.

I used the transcript version to label the scene, but in reality, the cadence is more like, “His name is Bren. And he is, um… very intelligent.” And during that pause, his brow furrows and he looks down, and his face stays there for the rest of the sentence and halfway into the next one.

I’m struggling to triangulate the tone of voice because it’s not quite dismissive, but it does seem like he is trying to sate their curiosity and be done with it, which is, again, quite unlike how he spoke about Caleb in e95.

Then he sighs and says, “I’m sorry. If my anxiety shows, there’s something about—I dislike not knowing what’s coming, especially given the stakes […]. There are few things I hate more than not knowing.” And I thought that was interesting because 1) relatable, but more importantly 2) he made a mental jump over the course of that sigh and I needed to know what it was.

It’s an easy enough conclusion to come to: his vibes were off because he was anxious. He’s anxious because he’s dealing with a lot of unknowns.

It’s a small character detail and it’s not new, but this instance of it has been spinning in my brain all day. Essek shutters himself a bit when he’s anxious and in new situations. He isn’t necessarily short in his answers and he doesn’t quite have a flat affect, but there is an emotional shuttering. I’m not sure if he’s cutting himself off from his emotions as well or just others—that could be an interesting facet to explore—but it makes him hard to read and he comes off weird. And I love it, it’s such a tasty character beat om nom nom nom

And! While I think it was pretty obvious that he was doing this conscious letting down of walls a lot as he befriended the m9, look at how quick he is now to articulate what’s happening and adjust accordingly! It’s still a little awkward and disjointed, but he’s been practicing over these seven years!!! I’m proud of him!!!!

[sbrn10]

C3E23

C3E63

C3E76

C3E85

C3E86

C3E89

[pagerunner-j]

I haven't been watching CR in a while, but tonight I decided to, at least, watch the prologue to the next live show that went up today.

It took Matt eight words to hit one of the words I want to surgically remove from his vocabulary until he learns a few different ways to describe things.

I really wouldn't be sad if it turns out that adding Chris and Jeremy to the mix means they get a couple new DMs at the table.

(Let Matt be a player for a change of pace, that's fine, but I have had enough of his narrative crutches to last me a lifetime.)