#this is fully speculative but as i am both a luxon stan and too interested in magical experimentation i had to write out my thoughts

[essektheylyss]

So, we know now that the Apogee Solstice is perpetual. To no one's surprise, I've got thoughts.

First, I don't think this was an intentional effect of the Malleus Key. It's a massively wide-reaching effect. We know that the destruction of Domunas was a large effect, and more active, but it only took a single moment of power. Actually holding the leylines and planar boundaries in alignment seemingly across Exandria (which we can infer is happening, on a meta level) for this long is well beyond that single moment of power.

My guess is that Ludinus intended to shatter the prison in one massive blast, like destroying Domunas to destroy the primordials, and he didn't quite get it right due to the sabotage from the Hells and Beau and Caleb.

That being said, we know also that a number of magical effects aren't working. Anything that travels across a distance or among planes fails, including, as we've learned, the retrieval of souls. Spells that are working are ones that happen instantly and locally, and ones with ongoing effects have been failing over time.

Teleportation circles were suggested to have been destroyed pretty rapidly, whereas long-term wards and transmutations are eroding over time. (Has anyone checked on Lionel of the Darrington Brigade recently?) These longer-term passive magical effects may get some amount of phantom power from the weave/leylines, enough to maintain the effect once the effect is in place.

We also know that the gods are still there, but they feel more distant, less present. However, we know that the leylines are stuck in their aligned state, that the planes should be in fact more easily accessible, because we know what great workings of planar magic can be achieved during an Apogee Solstice.

And, to return to the beacon, we know that there was spatiotemporal magic involved in whatever effect presumably both scattered the Hells (and possibly everyone else in that cavern) and froze the leylines in their aligned state, which is in essence all that an Apogee Solstice is. And the beacon is an artifact that has a great deal of magical power, which is often beyond the capabilities to control of even the mages of the Age of Arcanum, if the notes from the T-Dock in Aeor were any indication.

My thought, then, is that perhaps the Material Plane is out of sync temporally with the rest of the universe. Whether this is a semi-conscious action of whatever the entity of the Luxon is, or a passive effect of the beacon, it's possible that magic is fizzling out into static not because there is no magic to be had, but because any magic that has to travel across the leylines to create an effect, or draw magic from the leylines, finds itself in a temporal morass.

#critical role #cr spoilers #cr meta #this is fully speculative but as i am both a luxon stan and too interested in magical experimentation i had to write out my thoughts #i also did not get into the REALLY speculative side of things wherein i talk about my theories regarding demiplanes and pocket dimensions #but I've got further thoughts on that and i may elaborate. this is just evidenced speculation tho.