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dunamanticarchivist · 6 years

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Critical Role Latest of the Lateblogs C2E31 Commerce and Chaos

Well I think this is the longest I’ve held off watching CR 2 since binge-ing the first 13 episodes in a marathon procrastination for roughly 3 days. Which might be a good thing, that I’m giving sufficient priority to things around me. But not being able to browse twitter and tumblr cos spoilers has been rather killer. Now, for a relaxing shopping episode of... critical role. Also that title is amazing

Only 3 and half hours boo hoo

Or did they take out the break in replays?

Oh boi a Sam Riegel southern special

A true blue ‘murican musical masterpiece

ENCORE ENCORE

Oh thank god I thought they took out the audio for the cheesy intro

That wouldn’t be the same any more would it

RIP Sam Riegel, but RIP Matt Mercer first

Dafuq Nott is now inventing flechette rounds in fantasy settings

Holy shit thats gonna be dangerous - one potentially explosive arrow

Im surprised Travis isnt asleep yet

Okokokokokok there are shenanigans afoot with letter forgery

(Ok i got spoiled a bit for this bit, but still)

Liam’s face palm is mood

FROM THE TOWN OF NIGERIA

Jesus there will be a million repercussions spilling out of this and plot ends for Matt to refine into knives to murderinate them with

Oh no this will not end well. At all. RIP erbady’s heart

Diamonds, fucking diamonds

Ah there is Travis’ eyeroll. RIP him

LETS GO TO PUMAT’S (i saw a pumatprime logo that looks like amazon prime it was awesome sry i forgot who to credit it to on twitter)

Dese kids MOAR PUMATS

Bath time again?

GIMME THEM BRACERS

Thats really helpful Jester you should never bargain

A mighty girth....hmm not the group name you are looking for

Interesting spell selections. Feather fall, expeditious retreat, catapult. All 1st levels and uses reaction, bonus action and action. Very versatile

“This longsword”. Travis instantly becomes interested in shopping again. BAD FJORD BAD PUT DOWN THAT LONGSWORD. NO DONT EAT IT AGAIN BAD

The sword that was broken, potential plot point

Dust of deliciousness wtf that sounds absolutely baller

Cleaning out the pumats

ALL THE FUNKY ENCHANTMENTS someone please make the thinking meme for pumat

The dancing sounds like a Otto’s Irresistable Dance a lvl 6 spell enchantment.

8000 gold for that. Interesting.

As an economics student, I am incredibly fascinated by the price systems that exist in Exandria (so 400 gold for +1 weapon)

Lotta pigeons hooting in here

Tfw when your hobo wiz is charming af

Only 100 gold off, its something but thats less than 5% off the bill (total should come up to 2400 golds ish)

Paper and ink in the same box, I too like to live dangerously

Marisha’s grabby hands for the bracers *squeeee

Matt, you have no idea how heavy paper can get

“May I go to the library” jesus that brings me back to childhood I loved my school library

MOAR SHOPPING RIP TRAVIS ROUND 2

We now have an official cook and potion maker on the road, its gonna be lit

Suvo’s Secrets ooo what a name. 20 ft by 20 ft. The first thing that comes to mind is how a Fireball would put the place to flame. I need help

Holy fuck thats a big dragonborn

Im calling it thats a hoarding hag of a dragonborn

FROM YOUR MOTHERS CHEST really Matt you forget the Ruby of the Sea was a prostitute for one second. Just one second. Meme mode ON

1 gold for fucking garlic they have no fucking sense for money

They should have just brought Nott along and stole the whole bag

Jester please once again, never negotiate for prices.

Also if Matt was in the mind to fuck with them, they could literally be paying for the privilege of being cursed

Fjord bailing, shopping must have been super depressing

SABIEN??? SABIEN???? GIVE ME PLOT GIVE ME BACKSTORY

Bummer to have a week of failed investigation

ONLY CAT FRUMPKIN

Zenoth still being creepy af

Jebaited monk training Day 1: Time to fucking read

Roleplaying lvl 6 subclass features pretty good

Lotta bows there

Correction Laura: everyone be a Cobalt Soul monk

“I dont get to kill those guys?” aww man

Info dump lads this is a wiki filling episode erbady take notes

The Chained Oblivion? With all the manacles I think that’s shaping up to be BBEG of this campaign

STILL NOT A GOOD ENOUGH REASON TO USE THE WORD PENETRATE

Magical experimental in Solstryce? This is not a particularly helpful turn of events

I wonder does the eye serve as a spellcasting focus

THEY SPLIT THE PARTY DOWNTIME MOST DANGEROUS TIME

Lots of charming ASMR voices with the Gentlemen and Fjord

oh shite its cree another WHERE’S MOLLY???

Ya he ded

Eyyy here we go (i got somewhat spoiled for this defacing of temples)

The ‘healers’ got a cloak for Nott the bravest rouge. Yes. But this is entirely wholesome and soul saving

Clearly the cast isnt all the religious or that serious about it

The platinum dragon is now.... a farmer. Very agricultural

-3 to deception at disadvantage. Still a 13. Absolutely golden

This is heresy and we are all going to hell

I HAD JUST HIRED HER goddamn they are horrendous at this skulduggery

OH SHIIIIT 5 CROWNSGUARDS one of whom appears to be a spellcaster

fuck some kind of forcecage? Ottiluke’s Resilient Sphere does damage?

ALL SHALL FALL TO THE CHARM OF JESTER LAVORRE

RUN YOU IDIOTS RUN

Jesus christ I didnt know I could get anxiety from watching a getaway scene

Good lord Jester virtually blew through her entire long rest of options in one night of revelry

Oh god here cometh the heartbreak

Thats alot of vague speak in the manner of gods

Dafuq the god is real? He can touch the dodecahedron? This sounds like a great amount of fuckery

Holy shit the time indeed passed I forgot there needs to be a break

NO REST WE GO ON LIKE CRITTERS

Taliesin is playing his INT 9 well

Lets go vacationing in the Bahamas/Nicodranas/Menagerie Coast

PLEASE CAST PLEASE LESS PEE AND POOP JOKES IM TRYING TO SNACK

Yes that is exactly how Jester would cast sending someone once wrote fanfic like that. It is obviously now canon

REVENGE FOR NOTT THE BRAVE KILL ALL THE GOBOS

Paper = power

ITS MORE THAN THAT AAAAAA ITS SO WHOLESOME

Everybody gets a dead people tea healing potion

Aaaand we’re back to the beginning

A delicious transitory episode, and hmmm a one-shot 2 weeks from now? Fascinating.

#critical role #cr2 #critical role lateblog #critical role spoilers

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venti-venting-double-shot · 7 years

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Last week, my d&d character got publicly branded...

...and it was probably one of the best experiences I’ve ever had in any roleplaying game I’ve ever been in.

So, some context: it’s a ton of homebrew stuff, and one of the things is relating to Tieflings, and how they (and their Aasimar counterparts) eventually succumb to their fiendish blood (or, well, celestial). In the case of Tieflings, it kind of drives them insane ... like, tear your face off and eat it, insane.

Naturally, this leads a lot of people to be... suspicious... of Tieflings in general. When will they fly off the handle? WHO KNOWS? It varies from Tiefling to Tiefling, and it isn’t terribly well-studied for obvious reasons. Like, there’s even a special order (The Silver Order) that’s meant to deal with various supernatural things, and the Brotherhood Bane handles all things fiendish or outsider-related ... Tieflings being a part of that.

Only... if the Moon Blades, another branch of the Silver Order, are a surgeon’s knife meant to handle a problem with precision and care... the Brotherhood Bane is a fucking cannon you aim, fire, and worry about the casualties from later.

The way Tieflings interact with this setting is full of racism and misunderstanding of things like mental illness and curses; it’s all about superstition and fear and the hatred that that brings, and it has horrendously fucked with my character from the day she was born.

I took a sort of Tyrion Lannister approach with her origins - that is to say, nobility, probably royalty since her grandfather was the ruler of the country she was born to. (Mother died in childbirth, dad was MIA from the start.) Dreary place, stormy cliffsides, but lively people who adapted the motto “Weather the storm” as a way of spiting the shitty things that life throws at you. They wear bright colors with detailed patterns, tons of baubles, and their food is so flavorful it’d make a lesser being’s eyes water. Basically, I made a New Orleans spirited Greyjoy locale with the aesthetic of various Romani and India inspired colors & patterns.

I say Tyrion Lannister because I always appreciated his constant awareness of the privilege his family name had given him - namely, not being killed upon birth, though it didn’t do him much good when it came to the abuses he suffered.

Anyway, Mai is the character’s name, and she fell in love with another noble-born Tiefling girl she was introduced to, Alyssa Starstrider, a high elf that basically defined the term “aloof grace.” Alyssa was the first person that was ever kind to her, for starters, but it definitely helped that they were both Tieflings. To shorten this part of the story, I’ll just say that Alyssa was... troubled, even without the issues of the Dark Embrace, or the abuse she suffered at the hands of the family that was supposed to love and protect her. The two idiots ran away together, and eventually Alyssa succumbed to that good ol’ fiendish blood, and basically begged Mai to kill her before it was too late. Very sad.

Alyssa was kind of my experiment in how genuine mental illness would interact with a catalyst as powerful as literally evil blood consuming your very being. The result was ... not a pretty picture. She’s easily one of the most complex characters I’ve ever created, and she’s a relatively minor background character that died ten years before the story even started. She did care for Mai, but the romantic love was not reciprocated so much as manipulated with intent that was neither good nor bad.

Mai wound up being kind of a jackass, understandably, because the ordeal with Alyssa wasn’t even really the worst thing she suffered at the hands of other people; hell, she and Alyssa were briefly hunted down by the Brotherhood Bane, and though they narrowly escaped (due to Alyssa being very charming and them both being very young and helpless looking), the town that harbored them was burned to the ground. Distinctly unpleasant, no?

But that all kind of changed when she joined a guild; a group of adventurers that nobody else really wanted in their party, all flung together into their team of rejects. A wood elf (in a setting where they’re racist eco-terrorists at war with the fey), a tribal orc (in a setting where they raid towns regularly), an underdark drow (in a setting where the drow killed their gods and most went to the surface, while the rest remained a terror for the surface world), the equivalent of a Chosen Undead (for those of you dark souls nerds), an outcast half Yuan-Ti (snake people, or sneeple), a way-too-adorable-and-cheerful half high-elf monk, and a dude in really shiny armor that looked way too young to know what he was doing (that wound up being a Chosen Paladin in a setting where most of the remaining dieties have like 1 or 2 paladins per generation, but I digress).

They all kind of filled voids in one another, and became something of a family; they saved towns being raided by underdark elves, they saved the Baron of their country from a doppleganger plot, and a bunch of other cool shit that basically made them famous. The half Yuan-Ti was even a bard that made them rock stars, and... all of that included Mai, and that got the attention of the Brotherhood Bane.

Suddenly, all of the racist shit just kind of collided all at once; the lingering, wary stares were nothing compared to the ice cold looks barely seen behind creepy masks of silver. The snide comments were nothing compared to the way they brazenly marched through town, questioning everyone.

And Mai could have run for it, but... she really cared about the town, Runehearth, and everyone in it. She knew that they would probably die if she ran for it, and she also knew that they were a respected guild and that she had the favor of several nobles to keep her and everyone she cared about alive as long as she cooperated. But, well, that didn’t necessarily mean that 1) she wasn’t still terrified, and 2) things would go by smoothly. After all, she was still a Tiefling, and in particular, she was a Tiefling gifted with magical abilities. (Magus, especially, which are capable of putting out shattering burst damage.)

It was deeply uncomfortable, and terrifying, and one of the most tense situations I’ve ever been in. The leader of the Brotherhood Bane group that had come for Mai spoke with the guild’s advisor and the leader of the town, while she answered questions coming from a huge guy in a mask made from a Tiefling’s skull and coated in silver.

Her guildmates didn’t know what was happening, and she was afraid to say anything that might be construed as threatening or insulting - after all, despite her past history of being a jackass, she had grown to care for these people, and it wasn’t her own life that she was most afraid for.

And then the leader of the town came back out and spoke with her and told her what was going to happen - a mark, basically, to track her progression into the Dark Embrace. A registry. And, well, we all know how well it goes when you have an entire group of people that you feel the need to slap a mark on to register them. But Mai accepted the terms, because it was better than everyone getting killed.

Except they started to do it right then and there, and her guild mates freaked out and started a fight, which ended horribly and led to Mai basically being dragged to the center of town and it became a spectacle and ...

And that’s when the orc, Lur, said something that kind of changed everything. Even as the Brotherhood Bane was delivering their spiel to the newly gathered crowd, even as they were basically firing up their dumb magical brand, and even as the rest of the guild was basically being held down by various Brothers... “Say the word,” he said, “and the Runeguard will come.”

And that’s when Mai realized that none of it mattered; the villagers were horrified, her guildmates were devastated, and the only people who seemed to give a single fuck about the supposed “justice” were a group of little more than thugs given too much power. Something kind of, like... settled, because it wasn’t about this moment, it wasn’t about her, it wasn’t about the Brothers, it was about a message.

“No,” she told Lur. “He wants to make an example. And I’m going to let him.”

And so it happened, and it was terrible, and she was literally bed ridden in the alchemist’s house for two days, and some people even started protests to try to get her out of town, and Mai was definitely fucked up by the whole ordeal, but like... she saw her opportunity to basically be a martyr, and use her political position for good, and she fucking took it.

She’s petitioning the Baron (who will talk to the Duke, who will talk to the King), she’s writing a book (most of the literature on Tieflings, if not all of it, was not written by Tieflings, and Mai has an education and a 20 intelligence, so it’s not exactly hard to come up with quality academic content), the works. She fully intends to pioneer a movement for the benefit of all Tieflings, and her lofty ambitions also include curing the Dark Embrace (or, at least, kickstarting the attempt to do so in legitimate circles, instead of desperate fool’s efforts).

...

And that’s the story of how I’m starting a social justice movement in D&D for Tiefling rights.

Also, Mai is a lesbian. In case the bit with Alyssa wasn’t obvious enough.

But no, seriously, like ... it was the most intense session I’ve ever been in, and it hurt so bad, but it was the biggest turning point my character has had. She let herself be vulnerable (and hurt) for the sake of not getting everyone killed, which is not something she would have ever done before. And, well... racism is an issue we face right now, in the real world, as is misunderstanding of mental illness (and homophobia, but that’s not an issue in this setting). For all anyone in this setting knows, the Dark Embrace could eventually be a perfectly harmless thing or altogether nonexistent, if studied properly instead of (heh) demonized.

To have it all thrown together in this CLUSTERFUCK of a session had my heart pounding, and I was practically hyperventilating (as were some other players). It was... emotionally heavy, to say the least. I’m still reeling, and it’s been a week.

/end ramble

#d&d #d&d 5e #5e #tabletop #roleplaying

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