#then i have a class from 2-450 and then that essay is due at 6

[librarycard]

im so tired should i just force myself to get up early and do work then

[hahanoiwont]

Johann was too powerful to let live.

Alternately titled: Johann the level 35 billion bard

And here’s why.

Bardic Inspiration, according to the DnD player’s handbook, can be cast a number of times equal to your charisma modifier, with a minimum of one. It is a single-target bonus action, meaning you can cast a spell or take an action (such as telling Magnus not to let the world forget you) on the same turn. If he hadn’t been busy with dying he could also have used his movement and an attack or spell, but he was pretty stabbed at the time and only posthumously managed to get that inspiration going. It only affects people other than yourself, within 60 feet, who can hear you.

We can assume the voidfish negated the 60 feet rule and also the need to use a separate action for each inspiration by virtue of psychically blasting that music through the planar system. But other characters who can hear your Bardic Inspiration do not benefit if they aren’t the target. That means that Johann had to have the charisma to reach each person he inspired.

So just how many people did Johann reach? The entire planar system heard his song. That means the population of each plane has to be taken into account.

Planar populations (I don’t know how Griffin got 13 planes out of the crazy planar systems in the handbook so I am using my best guesses): Prime Material Plane. This is a traditional high fantasy setting. We are assuming (errenously but generously) that aliens don’t exist and that Johann’s Inspiration went to only inhabitants of the world Faerun is on, Toril. There are eight continents on Toril: Faerun, where the campaign takes place, is the most populated and the one we know most about. It’s a medieval-magical continent, so I’m going to use Europe’s population just before the black plague and say 450 million people. Zakhara is dominated by elementals and is physically much smaller than Faerun, so we’ll say it’s only got 20 million people. Kara-tur is Fantasy East Asia, which had approximately 100 million people if we were to cut out a Kara-tur-sized swath of it. Maztica is akin to Fantasy Pre-European Americas, so we’ll go with an approximated pre-European Mexican population of 37 million, given the similar size, shape, and agriculture. Anchorome is unexplored territory inhabited by the same “wild elves” and humans as Maztica, so we’ll give them a minimum of 13 million people. Katashaka is completely unexplored but known to be the origin of several tribes of various species, so we’ll give them and average of all the other continents at 150 million people. Laerakond is home to dragon empires and “new cultures,” and so presumably well-populated. We’ll give them the same population as Faerun with 450 million. Finally, Osse is a nature-oriented continent populated by spirits and druids, and so probably not very dense. For easy math, we’ll say 5 million on the whole landmass. This gives the Prime Material Plane 1.22 billion inhabitants. Plane of Thought. As I sat down to write this, the global population is estimated to be 7.6 billion. Again, not counting aliens or animals, though theoretically an animal could be given Bardic Inspiration depending on the languages spoken by the bard in question. Celestial Plane. How many gods can there be? We’ll say two hundred, each with a maximum of 100 servants, angels, et cetera. 2000 max population makes the Celestial Plane mostly insignificant. Ethereal Plane. No one lives here. Astral Plane. Presumably, everyone who has ever died comes here, which means 100 billion from the Plane of Thought alone, discounting reincarnation. However, the sea of souls does not seem to support individual identities, and Kravitz at one point said something I can’t find about how you join all other dead people not in the Stockade and simmer in the collective memories of all who have once lived. For simplicity’s sake (and also because we cannot get into the trillions here, please God), we will assume those people are not individuals enough to be hit with the Inspiration, and the only recipients from the Astral plane were Kravitz and a couple thousand souls in the Stockade, which then formed Legion. Therefore, this is also an insignificant number of people, say 2001. Plane of Shadow. Has its own quasi-god and inhabitants, sort of a mirror of the other worlds’ fears. 2 million inhabitants seems reasonable, approximately one for every 600 people on the Prime Material Plane. Plane of Light. I’m sorry guys, I don’t know shit about this. I don’t think it’s a canon DnD plane. Griffin mentioned it by name but I think he lied to us, folks. We’ll give it the same as the Plane of Shadow for the sake of balance. 2 million inhabitants. Elemental planes: Air, Water, Fire, Earth. Each of these is home to creatures associated with this element, including Genasi, particular species of elves, Aarakocra, etc. We’ll give them 25 million each, for a total of 100 million. Plane of Magic. Also not a real plane. Do people live here? Since this plane colliding with the Prime Material Plane resulted in the loss of all life in the system during TSC, I’m going to say it itself cannot support life. 0 people. The Far Realm. Origin of mind-flayers, beholders, etc. Population is unclear, as visitors go insane and usually die. At least 1 million. Other Planar Systems. Seven humanoids and two voidfish, total of nine people.

That is thirteen planes and the IPRE accounted for, although I will entertain suggestions about other planes replacing the Far Realm, which is the only plane not directly referenced by Griffin in the show. However, since mind-flayers are canon for taz, it seemed appropriate to include their place of origin in the universe.

I have been very conservative with some of these measurements, so as not to be in danger of exaggerating. We have a minimum total population of 8,925,004,010 (eight billion, nine hundred twenty-five million, four thousand and ten) sentient beings capable of receiving Inspiration, and Johann is heavily implied to have reached all of them.

How is this possible?

There is no way in the base game to increase the number of people you are capable of giving Bardic Inspiration to unless you improve your Charisma. Johann, being dead, did not have time to take a short rest and regain his Bardic Inspiration uses. He must have performed all of his inspirations in one go.

Clearly, Johann’s Charisma modifier is 8,925,004,010, allowing him to use that many Bardic Inspirations in a day.

This means Johann’s charisma is 17,850,008,030.

Assuming he started at level one with a perfect 20 Charisma (possible for half-elves and a few other races), and he improved his Charisma at every Ability Score Improvement opportunity without taking feats, and that past level 20 Ability Score Improvements continue to come every four levels (and completely discounting the 20 cap on level and abilities because we don’t have evidence for that existing in canon and we do have evidence of Johann using nearly 9 billion Bardic Inspirations at once), he must have increased his reach by one person every four levels. There is no other way to gain points in Charisma in the base game, so he must have improved solely through leveling.

He started out as a level one with five uses of Bardic Inspiration, and ended with at least  8,925,004,010. This would mean that he leveled at least 35,700,016,020 times, making him a level 35,700,016,021.

Johann is a level 35.7 billion bard.

For reference, this makes his proficiency bonus 8,925,004,011; he knows every Bard spell, if spells known follows the trend of the Bard table past level 20, and up to 6 spells from other classes due to the Magical Secrets bardic ability. If that follows the pattern of increases past level 20 as well (learning two non-bard spells every four level past level 8), he knows every spell in existence, regardless of class. Spell slots seem to stop going up after four per level for bards, but he definitely has at least four in every level of spell up to 9th. His spell save, the number you have to roll to resist his spells, is well over 17 billion.

But Jared, you say, Jared. If Johann was truly a level 35,700,016,021 bard with all of these crazy abilities, he couldn’t possibly have been killed in one flip!

Wrong! I say, doing a sick flip and jumping on the table because this is my essay and I get to decide what it says. You think I am very cool and definitely right about this. I didn’t spend three hours today researching for an essay about a minor character in a dungeons and dragons podcast.

Anyway, yes, Johann can be killed. For instance, the lowest base score you can have for Constitution and Dexterity is a three, with a modifier of -4. This means Johann could have started with 4 hit points. Given that he as a bard gets 1d8 plus his constitution modifier hit points with each level, it’s possible that he even lost hit points with about 3/8ths of his levels. If he rolled badly (and depending on DM mercy), he may still have somewhere around 4 hit points.

Even if he had more than that, though, he also dumped Dexterity, and never put any points into anything but Charisma. He has not fixed the problem of being squishy and easily killed with any of his 8.9 million Ability Score Increases. With a Dexterity modifier of -4 and his canonical clothes instead of armor, his Armor Class is 6. He is easy to hit and easy to kill once you get past the frankly terrifying Charisma stat. This would also give him a -3 to Initiative (the bardic skill Jack of All Trades gives him +1), making his turn pretty late in each round of combat, depending on what he rolls. If you can go before he completely annihilates you, Johann is very squishy and mortal.

The Hunger, a multiplanar, vaguely bardic entity, would be capable of dealing large amounts of damage, too. The Shadows that are initially sent deal 17-33 points of damage with regular attacks in canon, and a crit or a surprise attack would certainly kill someone with Johann’s shit constitution. Given the circumstances, Johann’s death is plausible from a narrative standpoint and absolutely necessary on a metatextual level because a level 35 billion bard would absolutely just crush the Hunger beneath his heel. I don’t care how many planes it’s consumed. His Vicious Mockery, a cantrip, would deal 8 billion d4 damage. The Hunger saw its most terrifying opponent and took steps to kill him first, before he could see it.

Luckily, Johann had already written his hella inspiring music apparently seconds before this happened, so he can hang out in the Astral Plane watching his bardic legacy wreak havoc as literally everyone everywhere adds, like, 34d100 or some shit to their attacks. “Fuck you,” he says.

(As a side note: he is never sent out on missions because can you imagine a level 35,700,016,021 character with a Grand Relic. Shit, he practically is a Grand Relic. He would touch it and the world would end. He is the one strum man.)

In conclusion, Griffin gave Johann depression and then killed him because if he actually did shit he would be too powerful. Thank you for coming to my TEDTalk.

[gardencourtsf]

On August 16, 1972 Roman diver, Stefano Mariottini, made a “macabre” discovery. He was diving at a depth of 8 meters in the waters of Marina di Riace (Reggio Calabria), when he noticed a hand sticking out of the sandy bottom. He began digging in the murky bottom until it revealed at first a face and then a full body. Indeed, there were two bodies; one lying on his back another lying on it’s side. These are what are now known as the Riace Bronzes. Both statues are almost two meters in height.

In the following days municipal divers tied ropes to balloons that were then filled with air lifting the bronze statues to the surface. Statue B was recovered on August 21st, while Statue A was retrieved the next day (It had previously fallen back to the bottom once before being safely brought to the beach).  [1. Excerpt from Radici, Chi Sono? Da Dove Vengono? Chi Fu L’Autore E Perché Sono Finiti In Fondo Al Mare? Il Mistero Dei Bronzi Di Riace È Aperto., Jul 2016. https://www.radici-press.net/chi-sono-questi-due/ ] [2. Vanity Fair Italia Bronze Statues: who stole the third man? As promised by Vanity Fair, here are the documents and photos, discovered by Professor Giuseppe Braghò, which demonstrate the theft of the “kits” – shield, spears and helmets – of the two most famous Greek statues in the world. And also the existence of their “brother” https://www.vanityfair.it/news/italia/2012/08/16/bronzi-riace-40-anni-dopo-terzo-bronzo-rubato-furti ] [3. Strettoweb, Reggio Calabria, today the 45th anniversary of the discovery of the Riace Bronzes: an exciting story, “16 agosto 1972: 45 anni fa Stefano Mariottini ritrovava i Bronzi di Riace nei fondali del reggino Reggio Calabria, oggi il 45esimo anniversario del ritrovamento dei Bronzi di Riace: una storia emozionante”, August 2017, http://www.strettoweb.com/foto/2017/08/16-agosto-1972-45-anni-fa-stefano-mariottini-ritrovava-i-bronzi-di-riace-nei-fondali-del-reggino-foto/448020/  ]

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The Riace Warriors (also referred to as the Riace bronzes or Bronzi di Riace) are two life-size Greek bronze statues of naked, bearded warriors. The statues were discovered by Stefano Mariottini in the Mediterranean Sea just off the coast of Riace Marina, Italy, on August 16, 1972. The statues are currently housed in the Museo Nazionale della Magna Grecia in the Italian city of Reggio Calabria. The statues are commonly referred to as “Statue A” and “Statue B” and were originally cast using the lost-wax technique [4. Lost-wax casting, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost-wax_casting ].

The Severe or Early Classical style describes the trends in Greek sculpture between c. 490 and 450 B.C.E. Artistically this stylistic phase represents a transition from the rather austere and static Archaic style of the sixth century B.C.E. to the more idealized Classical style. The Severe style is marked by an increased interest in the use of bronze as a medium as well as an increase in the characterization of the sculpture, among other features.

The two statues are thought to represent Tydeus (Statue A) and Amphiaraus (Statue B), two warriors from Aeschylus‘ tragic play, Seven Against Thebes  (about Polynices after the fall of his father, King Oedipus) [5. Seven Against Thebes, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Against_Thebes] and may have been part of a monumental sculptural composition. The statues have lead dowels installed in their feet, indicating that they were originally mounted on a base and installed as part of some sculptural group. [6. Excerpt from an Essay by Dr. Jeffrey A. Becker,  Khan Academy https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ancient-art-civilizations/greek-art/early-classical/a/riace-warriors ]

Large cast bronze of head and torso, modeled after the Riace Warrior B; 20th century;

Currently, we have an imposing and detailed cast bronze torso and head modeled after the Riace Warriors, Warrior B. on display in our gallery at 1700 16th Street in San Francisco [7. Large Scale Cast Bronze Grecian Torso; modeled after the Riace Warriors (b), 20th century at Garden Court Antiques, https://www.gardencourtantiques.com/shop/large-scale-cast-bronze-grecian-torso/  ] ^jh

An Archeaological Mystery! The Discovery of the Riace Bronzes in August 1972. #sculpture #bronzes #riacewarriors #lostwaxcasting #mythology On August 16, 1972 Roman diver, Stefano Mariottini, made a "macabre" discovery. He was diving at a depth of 8 meters in the waters of…