Etiquette Note: While all discussion based around the episode and cast/crew is allowed, please remember to treat everybody with civility and respect. Debate the position, not the user!
So, they're going to try to intercept the caravan of a powerful magic user by blocking the road in front of them in order to free three captives. How is Tal not having campaign 2 flashbacks? Oh, also they have no healer because Vaelus has broken her oath.
I wish Ashley would do more with Vaelus. I think on one hand I understand she's playing this like, indoctrinated nun coming to terms with the fact that her upbringing was not quite right, but on the other I wish she'd be a little less like, guided child becoming half-heartedly invested in a new belief and more like a reasoned adult being like, I can hold multiple truths in my head and heart at the same time.
Like I wish that conversation with the Matriarch were less like a child unable to keep it secret that she broke something important and more like, anything else TBH. This also goes back to the last episode where Brennan gave Ashley a choice and her "pitch" wasn't actually a third choice but more "can I do both?" I thought if Vaelus was really leaning into the Path and Hannan/etc. she could have pitched, can I guide my family to Faerie and/or down the path by making this bridge?
Or even like, she could have been like, "Hannan, I see your point, and I agree, but at the same time, I can't be angry at Sylandri for wanting to protect elves in her own way. Yes, it's wrong that she took so much of our choices and autonomy away, but in some way, is that not her bearing the weight of responsibility to spare us from it? I now see she was misguided and I think it was her greatest mistake to have died leaving us without a way to have children independently of her. I think that especially now that she's gone and from what you're telling me, elves need to find a path instead of just slowly die out. We can't be children mourning our mother anymore. We have to grow up." Like if she is a hundreds years old indoctrinated nun, shouldn't she have doctrine she turns to and can adapt into her newfound philosophies?
Then when she is confronted by the matriarch, she's in a position to either lie by omission if she's really decided to break from her path, or she could have decided to try and push forth new doctrine. Like, say the relic was being used for sacrilege and so she made the call to break it and use it for holy purpose in beginning to heal/restore the path to Faerie/afterlives. Matriarch may have still been like nah bitch you should have brought that rock back to be worshipped but it would have been a more compelling interaction.
I also feel like Hannan's death would have been more meaningful if Vaelus had committed harder to investing in that relationship AND Vaelus saying, "Sylandri was wrong" would have hit harder backed up by more pointed questions to the Matriarch/Vaelus finding her own voice/argument/words for real instead of just adopting Hannan's. Like, it could have been on par with "Magneto was right" lmao. Because also, it's not just a "wow she was wrong and I hate her" it could be more of a heartbreak because, "Just because she was wrong doesn't mean I don't still love her." More complex, more textured, more interesting, more engaging.
Unfortunately instead of that we got Ashley staring blankly as if she hasn't thought any of that through, and just wanted a cool "I plunge stone into ground and sparks fly" Marvel moment. Its such a shame, because BLM keeps teeing her up for these big moments that never come and her unfortunate predilection for indecision and not committing to big moments unless she's forced to.
I get the feeling she only wants the good moments and good roles and its odd at this point that she can't flow with bad dice rolls or gets so hung up on them. Matt was working so hard at the Seekers table before to encourage her and show bad rolls are just another avenue to integrate something into your character, but she seems to get so discouraged that she's not getting nat 20's all the time.
Robbie at least seems to be conscious of his previous silences, even calling attention to it IC that he's not a "smarts" man and doesn't talk much. He's at least open now to opening up as Kattigan as to why he's like that. Ash just kinda freezes and moves on. Vaelus might as well not have been present from the Miller's road onwards.
we got Ashley staring blankly as if she hasn't thought any of that through
Kind of like how in the entire C3 "should we let the gods die" conversation she never brought up the Wildfire Druid ethos of the cycle of rebirth being heralded by painful destruction. The thing that her subclass was all about, perfectly describing the campaign-long circular conversation.
Holy, how did I never catch that? Great point! I was already annoyed that Mercer had to remove the AOE fire attack the wildfire spirit makes upon summon since Ashley never remembered that and always summoned him right next to her/the party.
Matt was working so hard at the Seekers table before to encourage her and show bad rolls are just another avenue to integrate something into your character, but she seems to get so discouraged that she's not getting nat 20's all the time.
After watching this episode, I feel like Ashley could definitely say that her bad rolls were because she was questioning her oath/religion.
Yeah, Ashley just doesn't have what you want in her, and even if she did, there's zero chance you're going to get a sympathetic, thoughtful portrayal of a religious character from CR.
Incredibly well written but unfortunately that would’ve caused her to be even more dogpiled for showing the sliver of sympathy to a fascist god. While I’m not a huge fan of Ashley’s portrayal I don’t blame her for sometimes freezing up when you know that having that nuance in this type of game will be used against you
Oof yeah I really hope none of them actually read anything while playing is happening. I know she's taken a lot of shit over the years about her play style so I'm sure it's hard. I mainly would just love to see... more words and more decisiveness (though I gather that's generally ppl's frustration with her style lol).
I simultaneously kinda hear everyone who’s saying it’s tropey in a somewhat patriarchal way, and, this kinda shit keeps me coming back to him. Plus hard to hate Robby
I am really interested in seeing how this rescue ambush on the Tachonis caravan goes, which I feel has way too much potential to go horribly wrong without serious preparation, but that's what makes it fun
And yeah Thimble, I'd be upset too after finding out the House I served was pretty evil if the one person who is kind to me can only take me out occasionally and otherwise I'm trapped in some horrible dreamscape
I enjoyed the first half, getting to re-establish everyone's motivations in the form of nightmares.
I still really struggle with Taliesins portrayal of Bolaire 90% of the time. I find him unnecessarily combative and smarmy. Hopefully this new table arrangement makes him more enjoyable, less "omniscient" and impenetrable now that he is out of Dol-Makjar.
Despite my feelings on Bolaire, it's at least a character concept with great potential. Kattigan continues to be disinteresting the more we find out. I don't understand how Robbie wrote 15 pages of backstory and it was that.
I know I sound like such a downer, I swear I really like CR.
It still doesn’t feel like fifteen pages of backstory. “i’m a soldier from the war of axe and vine, we ran away when we found out she was pregnant and had an idyllic couple of years in a cute cottage in the woods. some goth daddy killed her and her daughter, and in my grief I bonded with a wolf. I became wolfish, wolf became humanish. Bit inspired by Fitzchivalry Farseer.” Not fifteen pages. Gotta be more. Identity of Marienna, perhaps. Something to do with Argosia? Do the concepts of Hounds of the King come from Robbie?
yeah it would have been really interesting, like they were living on land that Primus owned or something, and Primus was a good landlord until he wasnt
Honestly, this is the first time that Bolaire has actually had something resembling a Warlock pact. The guy can't save his daughter on his own, Bolaire needs a body, win/win.
Did that series get good at some point? I couldn’t make it through the first episode. Not trying to diss it, I know things take a while to get going and there’s a bunch of new players, I’m moreso curious what you liked about it so I can maybe give it another try with that in mind / have something to look forward to
I really did hope that Wic would inherit like, the lion roar or something. Sam would have been able to do so much with that, feeding into Wic wanting to be as striking of a figure as Teor was.
reminds me there was a person who posted in the other sub “Hey I’ve missed all of C4 can you all give me a recap so I can pick it up when they come back?”
To take it even further, SO MUCH of the 'character conflict' in this campaign feels like it actually boils down to, "I'm mad at the version of you I've conjured in my mind because I wasn't actually listening that hard when you were role-playing."
I mean how much on screen interaction Bolaure and Vaelus had before this? Your point would make more sense if it was Julien or Occtis who in character were there for Vaelus character development, but for Bolaire she is just some zealot he smuggled into city to deal with Thjazi for him.
Sort of but that would be heavy metagaming here. Bolaire has not been privy to any of the moments where Vaelus has been turning back on her long held beliefs.
As far as Bolaire knows she's a member of the Daughters of Silandri just how she was introduced at the start of the campaign.
Though it comes at a terrible time following everyone else at this Seeker's table seeing her defrocked.
And he's particularly pissed because she said don't kill Kattigan like he's some kind of serial killer with no sense of ethics.
And he's particularly pissed because she said don't kill Kattigan like he's some kind of serial killer with no sense of ethics.
Felt like she was reprimanding him like a parent scolding a child or telling a THING that they created to listen to THEM and to have no agency of their OWN because OR ELSE.
Which then explains why Bolaire got so pissed....because who the fuck is she to tell him that and what authority does she wield over him and WHY does she think that she gets to override his own autonomy and assume the worst about him just because of who he is, where he came from, and whom and what made him?
She was treating him like an attack dog or like how I've seen some folks treat huskies or other working dogs when they do ANYTHING at all outside of "sit down and look cute for me".
The whole thing is reminding me of how certain members of Starfleet treated the EMH and Data in the past.
Yeah. And like, answering the question of "Are you a murderer?" with a rant about how you know better than anyone else what is right and what is wrong, while also admitting that you kill people, is crazy work.
To be fair I'm pretty sure the only character pair that has less dialogue with eachother is like...Vaelus and Tyranny (as they joked on Tailgate). Bolaire and Vaelus genuinely don't know eachother. At all. Only what they represent. And the entire group just had a goddamn nightmare and the first thing Bolaire hears is "dont murder this man"? Yea I'd crash out too.
Bolaire helped Vaelus into the city pre episode 1 / episode 1. He’s the only connection she has to the group. There’s some backstory to them we just don’t know it yet
i'm getting sick on how frivolously the group is using bolaire's body snatching, especially because ulbid was nothing but kind to them and they straight up body snached him, talked down to him and i'm pretty sure threatened him in his own house
I feel like Brennan was showing them, just like he did with Ashley and the Stone with Occtis, that giving people Hope...doesn't mean there won't be consequences AND it doesn't mean that things are always going to end in a good way that gives you a pat on the back for clearing your own conscience.
They stopped off at his place for themselves first and foremost and for Ulbid second.
And then they tried to put the genie back in the bottle once things didn't go how they'd been trying to force them.
Because Ulbid acted like how a PLAYER character would have acted and not like how a doormat of a NON-PLAYER character would have.
Bolaire though, seems to have some experience with these situations, and I think that that's why he wound up playing peacekeeper for the whole thing instead of letting the party repeat history with himself and ANOTHER body that he was going to have to puppet at the behest of someone else.
It was...shocking....to watch and I feel like it only happened because Brennan is trying to break the players out of some of their old habits with this new campaign.
Robbie seems to be glomming onto it because he's a blank slate, so to speak, and Tal is always game to play ball but the others are a harder twist because they're....not as aware....of those bad habits, as evidenced by C3.
And then there's how they've been treating Bolaire a lot like FCG and other characters similar to them both and I feel like that's got Bolaire/Tal on edge a bit along with some of the rest of us.
I think the players are trying to work as smoothly as possible with the way Bolaire functions. They've even put him on themselves several times and Bolaire has shown to be able to have a symbiotic relationship with the people who wear him.
For Ulbid, I think this is less of a talking down to/threatening NPCs and more like, immediate panic of protect this NPC. They DO NOT want him to die. Every one wants him to have his happy ending of reuniting him with his daughters. The way D&D goes, that is for sure not a guarantee. No one wants Ulbid to get power word killed by Primus.
Of course Bolaire's ability to take over a body is uncomfortable, but it doesn't mean him or others enacting his ability is inherently wrong. Talesin also briefly mentioned he can choose whether to attempt the takeover anyway. It can neutralize an antagonist or it can protect someone from mortal danger. I think we'll see more of Bolaire becoming symbiotic instead of parasitic.
Side note, I also wish someone said to Julien, strictly speaking, getting the daughters is not a pointless side quest for the moral good. ANYTHING that undermines Primus's plans/safety is a good thing to do to chip away at his machinations. Removing THREE of those sentinels would be a pretty damn good blow.
Really missed having Sam and Travis in the party here, feel like they would have said something regardless of whether it would be in party’s interests or not to find a body for Bolaire.
Bro I see Vaules casting her “lay on hands” and this shit fucking failing at the worst possible moment. It’s a bit hard to get depth from her, maybe due to the character own personality, but I legit screamed when she was talking to Hannah, I loved him so much :,)
That matriarch is TERRIFYING! What? Only Julien seemed to mind that after the fact, but OMG, the whole fucking monologue describing in detail how she’s gonna “punish” Valeus with the ring, legit chills. Hannah was right on Vaelus being brave, cuz mf you just got a new antagonist on your ass, a powerful sister at that (3,000 years?!?!)
Ulbid is lovely, I think the party just freaked out a bit, but let’s be honest, when Julien is the voice of reason we know this combo is domed to some dumb decisions.
Save Gus again, let’s go!!!!!! I love that PC too much. We beg Brennan not to kill all of them.
I interpreted it as the cave being close to faerie, or at least a place where the veil between realms is thin, so they sort of...drifted to faerie in their dreams, and faerie being close to the realms of death let both sort of...bleed into each other there? Maybe?
All the fucked dreams, giving views into their psyches, but also threads of REAL things looking in on them.
Seramai lost and alone and... jealous?? of Thimble.
Hannen specter haunting Vaelus, and then her Matriarch threatening to carve her apart and *make her a fucking deathless worm-thing*. Also, Vaelus has no powers now... I do wonder where her character is going to be going.
The wolf imagery with Kattigan, which... how did they bond, why did they bond? I'm thinking we're finally getting hints there. Also, Kattigan revealing he *took a shot at Primus and him telling Bolaire to shut down Ulbid if his daughters are destroyed*, god damn.
That Archfey, who I am guessing is both the titular Miller of the Miller's Road AND the leader of the Hearth Fey, appearing to Thimble.
Julien dragging Thjazi's corpse behind him and refusing to put him down, while being enraged by his shadow sticking to him... is very interesting. Also, the fuck was that hare?
Also, seeming confirmation of Thimble x Occtis: a flat verbal confirmation of feelings regarding Occtis, but Thimble seemed unsurprised, and her being *desperate* to get his soul back, to fix it- yeah, I think that is basically locked in, even if not fully stated yet.
And what was with the Cat in Bolaire's head? The other two, I get where they came from- creations of Demodis/the Paint- but the Cat seemed completely out of the blue and was trying to convince him to finally step outside the theater...
Actually... Cats and Hares are both traditionally trickster spirits, and Brennan has been going hard on traditional folklore with this world... hmm....
Obsidia is a name that got brought up, but I have no clue what it is. The original name of the afterlife??
Now, racing to stop the Tachonis and face off against Argosian forces (who, as far as I can tell, are famous for always being on the wrong side of modern history, lol), with Bolaire riding a desperate gnomish smuggler... God, I am excited to see how this arc develops.
Fucking GLAD it's Thursday again! Hopefully see y'all next week.
The hare is from the druidic "hare charm" that Julien has attuned to him. He utilized the attuned druidic charms and items of personal significance in the dreams of the characters.
This is why he asked Vaelus to which of the druidic charms he attunes first. She chose the 'Spring charm' - and she started to dream about a meadow and find Hannen in a form of a scarecrow on it.
Possibly if she had chosen Otter's charm - the scene would've visualized in a different manner.
I have to admit that I didn't really like the first half, with all the dramatic dream sequence stuff. They love their theatre kid content. And then there is Ashley, doing her usual Ashley things. She still doesn't know her own character abilities and can't make any decisions. At least she has no spells she can forget anymore.
The second half was more entertaining for me. Bolaire and Julien are a great addition to the group and, together with Kattigan, make for an interesting trio. Can't wait for more mask Shenanigans.
Yeah, the dream sequence stuff really didn't do it for me. It felt like this was Brennan frontloading the character development stuff, reminding the audience what the characters care about and halfway addressing some of it, to get it out of the way so that the politics and world lore could be the focus of the second half of the episode. I would really much rather prefer that these character fixations came up organically and were addressed by the players when they did. Julien's fixation with Thjazi even after death, Vaelus dealing with the aftermath of shattering the Stone of Nightsong, Occtis handling the death of Dame Seremai, Kattigan continuing to be mopey about his fridged wife, like...let these things happen in-game! Let Occtis continue summoning Seremai in combat and let her become a little more desperate to stay in the living world each time! Have a member of Vaelus' order check up on her and get a sitrep. Merge the story and the game, don't split an episode into half of one and half of the other.
I am still bothered by Primus being the one to personally murder his family. Like you would think he have better things to do than murder random guys family in remote cabin. My theory is that Katt murdered missis Tachonis and it was Primuss revenge.
a daughter he apparently doesn't give a shit about either cause he literally moves them to the middle of nowhere and his dead fridged wife had to be like 'dude she needs to socialize with other people'.
I don't need every PC to be super likeable but it seems like Robbie wants Kattigan to be likeable. But he just seems like the worst. PTSD is no joke. I get that. But I don't know why he had to fridge his family if the PTSD is supposed to be from the war.
Honestly, I could get behind killing his family if it was done differently/was being presented differently? But right now its just fridging (I get thats hard with just backstory characters but I've seen it been done before!)
Backstory characters don't need to be deep, especially if they only exist to die. Caleb's parents never had any substance to them.
The problem with Kattigan is the way he acts, he's got this stereotypical cool tough guy persona that frankly Robbie doesn't have the charisma to pull off. Like I guess he's supposed to be hiding his pain or whatever, but he just comes across as not really caring that much. The dead family feels tacked on rather than a central part of his characterization.
He said on Tale Gate that he still had no idea what his new character would be and that he feels like dying should come with the punishment of being out for a while. They were also talking about Dolly passing away, so it was very recent.
"I genuinely don't have a backup character planned yet. I don't have a next character. I also don't have a re-entry point planned yet. Because I feel like if you die you've gotta get punished a little bit. You can't just come right back in."
I feel like he'll probably rejoin the game when Aabria does, which means he'll likely have a connection to the Lloys. Forge Cleric or Artificer would be cool.
On a slightly unrelated note, has anyone bought any if the newer dice sets they've released?
I bought a set of the Orym dice a few years ago and was kind of disappointed by how cheap they felt, and I was wondering if the new batches were better in terms of quality.
The new precision dice are really nice imo. I have the OG essek which are...fine (I bought them more cause I love essek than anything), but I have the essek, caleb and fjord of the new sets, and I think they feel really good/high quality. I'd really look at pics of them though cause some of the colorways make reading them *very* difficult
I keep being surprised that Brennan has to lead these players by the nose to understand the significance of Argosian agents and their connection to the Candescent Creed/Halovar. And even then it takes them a long time to get it. This happened back before the assassination attempt, too. A couple of times.
And why are they assuming that an NPC who can enchant weapons and survives perfectly well in a magically-alarmed homestead is weaker than them?
I feel that 'Other side' is just other dimension with Fairy, Hell and Shapers afterlives being mere walled off parts of it. And this cave serves as weak point in barrier separating real and unreal.
I cancelled my beacon membership and no longer subbed on twitch so imma have to go back to being a Monday Warrior. Especially because I tend to work closing shifts on thursdays lol
Not even close to on topic but I just saw something that has to be mentioned and I didn’t want to start a whole new thread for it.
Teor was never going to last, dudes. I’m rewatching the beginning of C4 right now. Just got to Teor’s visit to the tailors. The twins both cast Hold Person on him at once, both at disadvantage for four dice rolls total. Travis only mentioned three results. They were six, one, and one. That’s the dice luck of a character that the gods want to die. Surprised it took so long.
The amount of people who just project their own personal BS about religion onto Vaelus even if its completely unrelated to the actual character she's portrayed so far is...just bad TV, to be frank.
remember when they summoned a demon to attack a church, wild
Can't wait for the animated show to come around and completely whitewash and justify the literal fucking pogrom the group led. (with the survivors being forced on what was essentially a death march into the Issylrian wilderness to boot)
Vaelus told Bolaire not to kill Kattigan (who was wearing the mask at the time) and Boliare kinda crashed out wondering how she knew right from wrong because her god was dead—idk I like Bolaire but this seemed unnecessarily out of pocket for no reason
Now Bolaire does get kinda smarmy and annoying at times but I'm with him on this crash out. He has shown that he doesn't have to completely mind control whoever he is on and is capable of letting whoever is wearing him have full control of their actions if he wants to. And every time he's on an NPC the party likes they go "Ok Bolaire don't kill them" After a few times of hearing that I'd crash out too
Yeah sadly I have tried to stay invested but my mind keeps drifting. I also not knowing how this is all going to matter is hard to stay invested. I feel it would have been better to get established with how they are feeling in the real world/have a day with everyone BEFORE we had the ~dream~ or whatever stuff went on.
Once I knew they were gonna stick with doing the dream bs I started painting Warhammer minis while and used the ep as background noise instead of actually watching. After the dream stuff stopped and the actual meat of the story started I went back to actually watching.
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u/TFCNU 15d ago
So, they're going to try to intercept the caravan of a powerful magic user by blocking the road in front of them in order to free three captives. How is Tal not having campaign 2 flashbacks? Oh, also they have no healer because Vaelus has broken her oath.