#crew of the per aspera

[e-johnsen]

I almost forgot to post pics of the full set of lil' guys. I am happy with how they came out and hopefully will make another set to keep at some point. These got shipped out to the crew of Rolling With Difficulty. Did not make a Cressida because I knew i wouldn't be able to part with her. XD

Thanks again to the entire crew of RWD and the community around them. You guys really make life better.

[puppuddart]

teefies

[astroaeroace]

Finished the Per Aspera oneshot. I might have more thoughts tomorrow when I relisten but initial impressions below.

It’s so good to be with these characters again. Campaign 2 did grow on me and I’m looking forward to Campaign 3, but there’s a reason I’ve listened to Campaign 1 more times than I can count. I love these characters, I love their arcs, I love their silly little adventures on their awesome ship. So happy to have them back!

I do think this episode struggles a bit with its pacing. As much as love having 5 and half hours of more Per Aspera, I think it could have been tightened up, especially in the first half. The core of the episode — the choice about the future of the Oloranwë — is so solid, so compelling, that I wish we’d had more time to spend on that. Make the path to Arborea more straightforward and let us spend more time talking with Thera and getting to know her, getting to care about her perspective. Give Kyana more time with one of her own. Give the crew more time to think through this choice. Let us spend more time catching up with the crew and their friends. Let us sink into and enjoy the places we visit rather than rushing through them on the way to the next thing. Let it breathe.

That said, it is a very fun episode. I’m glad to have them back. I loved the couple in the tower; they’re lovely and so fun as NPCs. And the lore of the True Words is fascinating! And I’m pleased with how the Oloranwë situation was resolved — or at least how I think it was resolved. It does seem that Kyana’s intent was taken into account, so the Quori won’t just be bound to new hosts at random, but rather by consent of both parties. Very clever of the crew to find that third path forward and I think it works well. It is left a little ambiguous if it fully worked in the way she wanted — we know it worked to bring the Oloranwë back, but whether the aspect of mutual consent was kept seemed a little fuzzy. I suspect that is Austin just keeping his options open just in case.

And we got hints for another one shot in the future! Orcus and Vlaakith! A bit of a dual storyline there for VR-LA and Vhas and I’ll be so excited for that whenever the time comes.

In the meantime, I’ll be entertaining myself imagining VR-LA and Maxim chatting about their adventures over tea.

[caliburn-not-calculator]

This is your sign to talk about the blorbos. Pop off

Okay I was yapping about mechanite gender today so imma transfer some of those yaps here to inflict on tumblr

So to me mechanites don’t have any cultural understanding of gender beyond what has been picked up from societies existing around them. Like a mechanite raised in a non mechanite society will probably have more typical “binary” view on it but someone from a more classical Mechanus society is more like, we just Exist and present as we please, no more to it than that. Machines don’t have a gender, they have no biological reasons to have conceptual ideas of sex or hence gender differences based of norms around that. They just exist and likely have demographics based off other factors for different things.

Canon Maxim is agender to me for this reason, if I’m picking a label for it. I feel like Maxim would have used neutral pronouns all through living in Mechanus but get he/himed upon going to the material plane because he presents in a typically masculine way through sheer coincidence, and going, yeah sure that works. He doesn’t really care enough to say otherwise and it fits fine for him. It’s nice and clear and doesn’t cause any confusion. Efficient, which is all that matters. Like, does a machine sit there and worry about what it presents to the world as? Does it care for gender? Does the unflinching and unified power of Mechanus ascribe to such ideas? No. Hence, neither does he. He doesn’t have much of a concept of gender for himself, it is a thing that exists outside of him I think

Also, despite physically and vocally sounding masculine Maxim’s clothing choice a teeny bit less stereotypically masc. In aus I’m like, yeah that guy lives in a suit probably, but in canon I physically cannot see him wearing that. Pants? No. Exists exclusively in long heavy mage robes. Which is indeed all he’s ever described to wear in canon (unlike VR-LA but we’ll get to that). It’s not like a dress but it’s a very neutral sort sort of garb by your stereotypical standards.

Then, onto VR-LA, who I have some fun thoughts about. Having been from Candlekeep has a more human/oid like view on gender. Not to say they were strict on having a binary but like, they actually have concepts of male and female unlike a purely mechanite society. He goes with being a guy because he was raised in that sort of slot, and that way he doesn’t have to overthink it. Like sure he doesn’t have any complaints and this is a role he can fit into just fine. But there’s a vague disconnect there that he’s not really acknowledging. He probably has that view of himself shaken up by spending more time around mechanites and yes this is my way to give the robot a mild identity crisis.

I will make that robot gender queer you can’t stop me

He pointedly ignore the little sparky feeling of euphoria he gets from long swishy wizard robes,. He doesn’t have a problem with masc clothes but he’s never really explored beyond it and is finding out hey, I like this?? Which is also one thing to note which is very minor but VR-LA like. Wears pants, which idk to me feels weird for a robot but it’s clearly a fashion/comfort choice he’s made. Even when wearing wizard robes he did his time showing thigh in season one and now they’re gone lol. He just leans a little into that more stereotypically masc look.

Anyway yeah I think VR-LA should get to experiment with gender presentation a little, as a treat <3

I also have thoughts about the other mechanites (Mainly E-DN being more gender neutral, AS-TR is she/they to me and very femme, Astro on discord pointed out C-RA being most strongly aligned to her gender in being feminine and yes I agree I love that). But anyway I have shit to do that I’m seriously procrastinating so that’s for another time

[sofia-not-sophie]

PER ASPERA RETURNS FRIDAY

[justablah56]

I miss rwd :(

[4letteraroace]

no rolling with difficulty today :(

i must wait one more week before i can be reunited with my blorbos :(

i fear i may perish without them :((

[the-mountain-flower]

(Spoilers for Rolling With Difficulty, S5E10)

I realized that since VR-LA had his memories restored, he probably knows what his original birthday is.

How awesome would it be if it just so happened to be the same day as the crew's group birthday?!

[blitzbefallen]

That moment when your partners make you dance.

[devis-nonsense-n-shitposting]

Wait YOU like RwD too?!?!?!?!?

YES! I've only more recently began watching it though, only on like season 2 of Per Aspera. Been loving it so far though. Love this silly little crew of misfits

[e-johnsen]

A gift for our favorite @justablah56. I've wanted to capture this scene from C1S1E6 forever, and now its all yours blah. As someone who played softball(badly) in high-school, i appreciated @emis-equivalent-exchange allowing me be a pitchitter for the first time ever.

[puppuddart]

(2/2) rwd digisketch dump pt 2 this time from today!! my art has improved a whole lot since i started drawing fanart for these guys and i can’t wait to see how much more it develops from here on out

[theexhaustedqueer]

I’m relistening to 5.4, and the thing that really gets me about VR-LA’s alternate timeline where he saves MR-SN is that that timeline is a bad ending tragedy for literally every other member of the crew except maybe Finbar. If the Per Aspera never drifts aimlessly through the Astral Sea, it’s never picked up and sold to Oto, Dani never gets her hands on a spelljammer. Maybe she and her brothers eventually get out from under Oto’s thumb, but without easily accessible planar travel it’s hard to imagine them leaving Brass. And for Dani, who grew up on the streets of Brass and for whom Oto taking her in meant so much to her because of how much of an improvement it was to her life, it seems unlikely that she’d make a home for herself in Brass outside the Heap. In this version of events Dani, Roy and Egan never leave the Heap. Dani never gets to see Mechanus or the second layer of Acheron. She never gets her ship.

Finbar’s life is probably the least changed. The Searing Tongue would probably assign him to a different spelljammer and he’d do his thing as normal. He probably even still gets involved in the Zuggtemoy conspiracy, since that was based around the Searing Tongue. Assuming the ship he ends up on is of similar skill to the Per Aspera’s crew, he and his other crew take care of Azotico and he maybe even makes up with Elyse. That all assumes events play out in a pretty similar way, but given that he’s got a completely different crew, things could go in any number of directions.

Vhas, without the crew of the Per Aspera, never escapes Tu'narath. There’s not much else to say for this one, it’s just generally bad for his prospects.

And, of course, Kyana. Without the crew of the Per Aspera to pick her up on the Astral Sea, she eventually swims her way to a portal. Whatever plane she ends up on, she’s hopelessly naive, and maybe she gets lucky and meets someone willing to help her, but the odds aren’t in her favour. Eventually she’s dragged back to the monastery. She— and Ione— are turned into mindflayers as the mindflayers’ plan to escape then destroy the planescape proceeds unchecked.

And then it comes to the NPCs. Enoch dies in Avernus. Ione and the rest of the monks get brain wormed. Cressida stays a mercenary. Roy and Egan never leave the Heap. Davion never meets the rest of B-team. Depending on the Finbar situation, Karrundentrassi might die to fucking fungus. Elyse might make up with Finbar but she just as easily might not. Hans has an even worse time making it to Mount Celestia and HE-11/Vice probably dies in Acheron. Emi eventually builds herself a working body and becomes an amoral murderbot wandering the Planescape, maybe after killing Casimir. And uh… things don’t look great for Maxim either. Yes, he still knows VR-LA in this timeline, but we know that A) in the current timeline, a big part VR-LA’s draw to Maxim is that he’s the only link VR-LA has to finding his old crew. If he still has his old crew, that draw never forms and they might never form a closer relationship. And B) we know that pre-amnesia VR-LA was more closed off than post-amnesia VR-LA, which to me indicates that pre-amnesia VR-LA probably wouldn’t put the same time and care into breaking down Maxim’s walls. It seems likely to me that in this alternate timeline, Maxim and VR-LA never become friends. And even if they do, Dani doesn’t discover Create Spelljammer for Vr-La to cast, so Maxim never gets his home turned into a spelljammer and never leaves his Sanctum.

I just wonder if when VR-LA thinks about that alternate timeline, he thinks about how saving the life of someone he cared about so much would inadvertently ruin the lives of all the people he cares about now, and I wonder if that keeps him up at night.

[justablah56]

hmm ..... thinking of turning Dani into a crow ..........

[stormcrow13]

Rolling with Difficulties and a breakdown of project creep

Rolling with Difficulty is a live play 5e D&D Planescape podcast. Sophia, who plays Dani (does the Moviestruck podcast and is Overly Sarcastic Productions editor/producer) made several jokes about precious moments figurines in Season 3 so I wanted to make precious moments figurines of the characters. I started that in January of 2023 when Season 3 was playing and I posted it on April 1 of last year.

Since I made those I thought I might as well make minis and since I wanted to reduce the number of packages I held off on sending the precious moments to the RWD PO Box. And since I wanted everything, other than the precious moments figures(because I showed them off while making them), to be a surprise I didn't post any of them. Austin the DM thought that Intellect devourers are too goofy with dog legs so he gave his spider legs which I though was cool so I made it and printed a few. @comicaurora, who plays Kyana, posted some concept art of an ancient drone that appeared for a chapter of Aurora and I was inspired by the one she labeled as dumb so I modeled it. I thought it would be weird to only send one concept and not the one that appears in the comic so I did those too. They got posted earlier and separately since they are not RWD.

By the end of Season 3 I had modeled the original crew and Dani's robot cat Plug and printed a mini of each(plus and extra Dani for season 1 red Dani) for their player and Austin. I though I should send a Plug in scale with the Precious Moments figures and that the rest of the crew would want them. So I printed one for every cast member.

And then between seasons 3 and 4 they did a Weird Little dude one shot giving official art for every crew member's companion. One of Finbar's pixies Old Bay, one of VR-LA's mechanical bugs Drone, and Kyana's pseudo dragon Sunny. So I modeled all of them and printed one for their player and one for Austin. I was trying to paint and send out all them before Season 4 started so I wouldn't have to model Vhas. Well Season 4 ended in September 2023 and I'm posting this now. Season 5 was announced to be the last about the crew of the Per Aspera and I was still procrastinating on painting them so I made peace with them not being painted and just sent them. Austin told me he opened the packages right before recording the last episode of Season 5.

And I ended up needing to send them in two boxes despite not wanting to send more than one being the reason I delayed sending them.

The Models can be Downloaded for free from

Printables: Crew, Weird Little Dudes, Intellect Devourer

Thingiverse: Crew, Weird Little Dudes, Intellect Devourer

If you want to help me keep making free models or to tell me what I should make next please check out my Patreon

[bbaked-beans]

I've been re listening to the per aspera campaign on and off since about the end of March and I'm currently on s3 episode 3 let me just say I ABSOLUTELY LOVE the crew's first encounter with Emi.

It's SO chaotic there's so much happening, like Dani, VR-LA and Kyana are freaking out about the bones and Finbar is just yapping away to Emi. I forgot how funny this episode is, I'm laughing my ass off