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Runtime Break start
4h 33m 2h 19m

I need all of you to roll a d4.

I’m going to need Azune and Kattigan to each give me a Death Saving Throw.

Overhead, arrows fly through the sky. Nearby, Loza Blade, about twelve or thirteen years younger than the last time we saw her, cries out as, thump thump, two arrows go into her shoulder. You see that she takes a small axe off a holster under an arm and hucks it across a battlefield as an archer commander says, “Another vol–” [axe in the head, falls to the ground].
She says, “Get back under the hill!” and shoves a young Tunks, the boarman (who at this point is only about 16) is a kid. As he grunts and snorts back into the waiting darkness.
You see overhead a rippling spiral of green necromantic energy shoot overhead. Far away from you, you see your friend Milo looking up and saying, “Everyone keep moving for-” [skull gone, dead, to the ground].
Kattigan, on the ground, describe your character for us in this moment and describe the injury that is starting to bleed out past the point of repair.
You see overhead the sky darkens as two sorcerors of the Sundered Houses fly under their own power. One of them drops from the sky, looks across the battlefield.
A tiny mote of light, as time almost slows.
Teor: “Down!”
I’m going to need everyone here to roll initiative.

On a battlefield, arrows and spells fly overhead. Thjazi runs. As he does, Thimble, from behind the sorceror, you look and see Thjazi is hit in the side and scatters, his shadows all vanishing as he hits the ground. Looking forward, you see a shape dart from the shadows ahead of him towards his body.
An incoming barrage. Flapping wings (wyverns taking to the sky).
Loza looks up and says, “Fall back, fall back!”
A shape runs towards Thjazi’s body, and at the last moment, you see gets two arms underneath it, lifts up his body, throws it on his shoulder and rushes forward as fast as he can, thundering with heavy boots, drops into the trench right in front of you, saving Thjazi from the oncoming barrage of these flying wyverns. As you return from the sorceror (as Loza calls to fall back) the face lifts him up and looks at you.
Casimir smiles, “I got him. Let’s fall back.”
And we’ll find out the fate of our old friend Casimir on this episode of Critical Role.

  • Ultragramps@lemmy.blahaj.zoneOPMEnglish
    1·
    10 days ago

    ♪Episode Song References♪

    ᕕ( ᐛ)ᕗ

    Highlights

    • 00:03:33 “Big Cats” - Travis [Pun Points! Teor’s Beastborn lion and the name Kattigan]
    • 00:04:20 Fan Art Moment Dwarven medic Norma’s epic saving of Lucia by using the very flesh around her own hand and arm to mend a gaping chest wound. (I thought it was Murray)
    • 00:07:11 The summoning spell cast near Loza Blade of a 9-pointed star from which emerges a 15-foot drake.
    • 00:22:40 Marisha:“Curse! Curse! Curse…”
      Ashley:“Die! Die! Die!..”
    • 00:23:00 This is episode 2 and I’m going to set a really important precedent about touchin’ stuff

    Table Rumble FX!

    • 00:24:31 We all saw the 10!
    • 00:24:49 Liam:“…because I’m alone with my unconscious baby mama.”
    • 00:28:28 …an archaic, heightened version of Kessian (a halfling language) interspersed with certain celestial glyphs. One word is Obsidia a very old term for the Tenebral Reaches aka underworld.
    • 00:30:57 Theology and conjecture
    • 00:31:46 …you’re not looking at a box, you’re looking at a coffin.
    • 00:33:03 Bird Stuff Nightingale song
    • 00:34:00 What’s the fancy lady doin’?
    • 00:38:10 Is Vaelus a threat to this family?
    • 00:42:48 Funeral winding down, attendants dispersing peacefully
    • 00:43:10 The Archanade in Lugzash
    • 00:44:56 General Raimond, Sir Julien’s father
    • 00:47:57 “I’ll throw these out.” - Elodie
    • 00:48:40 “Play Broken Wing.” - Halandil
    • 00:52:22 Walking back from the Tanners. All of you have just met Kattigan Vale again after many years being apart from each other. You reviewed the attack on Thjazi and Thimble’s hiding place, found crow feathers from a garment, bodies removed, a glass container shattered, the Stone of Nightsong missing. Thimble still has the letter for Bolaire and will be the final guest at the funeral.
    • 00:55:30 Fan Art Moment Thimble mourning on Thjazi’s chest
    • 00:58:40 Liam can’t read his LED20 and Ashley revels in schadenfreude.
    • 01:01:45 Flashback: The Wedding of Thjazi and Aranessa. A gift of a large flower bud reveals Thimble, a fae warrior.
    • 01:04:29 …the whole wedding was delayed because he wanted to get you something from the dollhouse that you would enjoy wearing before you had to go down the aisle.
    • 01:11:22 The false glyph found on Thjazi is identified as an ‘Aura Warp’ effect that fades after a day. Two are unaccounted for, Cyd and Casimir.
    • 01:12:34 Thaisha brings up the elephant wolf in the room. Fan Art Moment Wulfric
    • 01:14:06 Aabria gets a Nat20 with gift dice from Alex casting Speak With Animals
    • 01:16:16 Teor:“It’s been years since I’ve seen my brother, but dependable is not always a word I would use to describe him.”
    • 01:18:03 Thimble:“Super related. I know everything about it…I didn’t have anything to do with it.”
    • 01:18:43 …Casimir is a smuggler. He could get a wagon with a trick compartment…the plan was you get the glyph to Thjazi. Thjazi has a way to basically Misty Step through the wall into the hidden compartment of the wagon. Casimir was not going to be able to show up with the wagon, but Cyd worked as a driver…to get the wagon in position (where it would be within that short distance through the wall) and drive on out of there. Occtis and Thaisha would not be present at the execution.
    • 01:20:41 Azune elects to check with his fellow guard members and Thimble says she will check with Thieves’ Guild contacts.
    • 01:21:45 Loza:“The only voice within the Sundered Houses that’s been any kind of voice for moderation or slowing things down has been House Royce…Lady Aranessa was made to wait for four hours without being granted an audience with the House of Halovar.”
    • 01:24:42 Tavern in Caravan Hill called The Guard Tower
    • 01:26:11 “Hello, I am Vaelus of the Sisters of Sylandri.”
      Occtis:“Dunno who that is.”
      Vaelus:“How sad for you.”
    • 01:29:22 Things are rotten in Dol-Makjar right now… (Something’s rotten in Denmark, Shakespeare reference?)
    • 01:32:07 Bolaire connected to Vaelus
    • 01:33:24 Thimble:“He didn’t keep me, he was my partner. We were equals. Can you believe that?”
    • 01:35:12 Fan Art Moment Pin the undead fox familiar
    • 01:36:34 Loza Blade feels a kinship to the Lloy family
    • 01:37:11 The Tachonis kid, do the Ancients know you’re working with [one of them]?
    • 01:38:14 Fan Art Moment Occtis’ eyes whited out being scolded for not helping tidy after the funeral
    • 01:38:58 Loza:“Now I can’t discipline her, all right? Her family built the swords that killed the god of war. You, on the other hand, I will smack at a funeral.”
    • 01:41:13 Loza gives Teor her prized remaining fragment of the Torn Banner. “Some things have to go into the shadow, and some things are so important that even in darkness they can’t be thrown away.”
    • 01:43:50 Hal:“If you bring that level of threat into my house, near my family again, I promise you will live to regret it.”
    • 01:45:48 In the high western ward of the city of Dol-Makjar, in the neighborhood of Mirzash, the Villa Aurora (the home of the Candescent Creed, the House of Halovar) is built…
    • 01:48:55 Tyranny is flanked by her demonic sisters, Enmity and Cruelty. The fourth sister, Agony, is summoned shortly. The conversation reveals subversive intent to bring demons into the world.
    • 01:54:37 “The Candy Creed”
      *(subtle reference to Brennan’s Dimension 20 campaign, A Crown of Candy?)
    • 01:57:15 Tyranny:“Yeah, you almost got your ass kicked, too. It’s a good thing I puked.”
    • 01:57:34 Protect. Observe. Obey.
    • 01:58:34 Pun Points! While Tyranny is boosting Wicander’s self esteem to meet with Teor, she makes a Lion’s Den analogy.
    • 02:01:58 Wicander and Tyranny witness the glory that is Teor
    • 02:05:32 “…I see his pinky just flirting with the idea of dislocation. Just kind of keeping it there.”
    • 02:08:47 Teor:“Talcydimir.”
    • 02:09:13 …this mercenary in front of you fought on the other side of the war from your family.
    • 02:10:37 Photarch Yanessa
    • 02:15:04 Yanessa:“Get rid of the old throw rug, would ya?..The Halovars were the house of priests, second only to the Royal house of Obridimia. We were the golden-crowned ad then the Shaper’s War cast our homeland into eternal darkness! One after the other, where the gods fell, the Barrowdells rose. This world is half-poisoned; wastelands, ruins, magic chaos, eternal night. That’s the thanks for killing the gods. And you’re going to let one of those Torn Banner walk in here and ask you about why Thjazi Fang is dead?..The Tachonis are moving and we need to move and keep up…They are our closest allies and that means that our backs are right within reach of their knives. Why are they still so strong? Their lands destroyed and sundered halfway between Stormwrack and Eternal Night. What moves are they making on boards we can’t see? Thjazi had to die because the Tachonis wanted him to die, ad right now we need them close. I still can’t get my eye on what exactly it is that they can do…It’s time for you to know the truth.”
      Wicander:“You mean to promote me?”
      Yanessa:“Yeah, Wicky, you’re getting promoted.”

    INTERMISSION

    Hello, and welcome back to the city of Dol-Makjar as we arrive at the next day after the funeral (the wake) of Thjazi Fang. Light Descends on The Archanade (a massive museum of many wings that lies in the neighborhood of Lugzash high up in the city near the headwaters of the River Vrosh; The Archanade actually can see its expanse buttresses the river, a short cliff fall of about 20 feet into the surging waters. The higher up you get in altitude in the city, the more the waters are foam-white and immediately deadly if you fall into them, just from falling into foam that you can’t swim through). You look and see that The Archanade is this massive spiring gray stone (Like a lot of the stone that was shaped in the ruins after the Shaper’s War, this stone is flawless, smooth gray (almost polished to the touch) summoned by druids victorious in their defeat of the gods (For indeed, the Old Path, as it is called, was very nearly erased from the existence of Aramán by the gods who sought for their millennia of rule to be the only path by which mortals could access the divine; and yet, the Old Path did survive). The ancient smiths of the Lloy family (a family of orcish smiths native to Dol-Makjar) crafted the first of the Pariah Blades (those swords that were used to defeat Azgra the Conqueror, Shaper of War).
    The Lloy Wing (so named for that family of orcs) is a beautiful wing of the museum dedicated to celebrating the revolutionary history of the Shaper’s War.
    Taliesin/Bolaire, as the curator of the Lloy Wing, what do we see as we move into the dusty light and where do we find Bolaire within the Lloy wing?

    • 02:37:08 The motion-detect audio playback has been used in museums for long enough to become a novelty, replaced by wireless technology, but can still be found.
    • 02:37:27 …a well-crafted, but simple, cold, iron blade (so dull in its lack of ostentatiousness, it has obviously never known the touch of fire; was smithed carefully over time from raw ore through pure effort of metalworking (pounding of hammers again and again and again)). It seems like the light from these magical cantrips (as it touches it almost sinks into the blade, as though this blade were so common that that magical light could not even rest upon its fuller blade or edge).
      Off to the side, in an open door, we see an office. Candles burned down to the basin, and a silver coffin (sized for a halfling) on a desk, book and scrolls open. A sleepless Bolaire and Murray here working in this place. You’ve been working all night.

    {continued}

    • Ultragramps@lemmy.blahaj.zoneOPMEnglish
      1·
      1 day ago

      • 02:41:00 Brennan provides a big red button for Marisha and Taliesin. The conflict of truth, great truth (at least in the philosophy of the Penteveral) requires some risk.

      • 02:41:46 LaBORatories

      • 02:43:37 This is not an ancient artifact.

      • 02:44:10 “Where’s Chetney when you need him?”
        This is recovered wood from The Wastes. Shattered and fallen trees from the place where the Goddess of Life, the Shaper of the Elves died. (Sylandri)…This is the coffin of Olbalad (a celestial sometimes called The Sister of Mists; the halfling Angel of Death).

      • 02:46:48 Psychopomp: guide, whose primary function is to escort souls to the afterlife. The term psychopomp originates from the Greek words pompos (conductor or guide) and psyche (breath, life, soul, or mind).

      • 02:47:39 After the gods died, the study of wizards concluded that there were beings that were older than the gods; the fairy (the fae) had been around for much longer, demons had always existed on Aramán in some way or another…They say that giants walked this world before the gods arrived.

      • 02:48:23 Celestials are ‘called or sung into being’ by the gods and went feral after the war. To see a celestial is to see death itself.

      • 02:49:54 Bolaire:“I also will add, I’m not breathing.”

      • 02:50:12 An extra-dimensional space is discovered within the coffin

      • 02:51:00 Murray:“Well I’ll be a Shaper’s Anus.”
        Bolaire:“That was disgusting to say.”

      • 02:52:01 Bolaire:“Can’t make an omelet without breaking a few puppies, I suppose.”

      • 02:54:42 Murray’s got a job to do: Bursar of the Penteveral.

      • 02:59:11 Julien’s father, General Davinos, up early calls out for his son providing important commerce to the house of Madam Gurlistra

      • 03:03:03 Robbie’s epic reaction is worthy of a Sam shirt.

      • 03:04:56 Lore Drop Moment Seized supply wagons headed for Palazzo Davinos at the Dvalmar Pass prompt the General to inquire about the recent Farramh of Thjazi Fang.
        General:“Thjazi Fang saved your cousin’s life at the end of the War of Axe and Vine. It was a tragedy and a heartbreak that he ended up on the other side of the Falconer’s Rebellion…My hope for you at the funeral (having spoken to the Lady Aranessa of what unfolded there) is that you see what it means to live a life of honor.”
        Julien recounts his house’s name falling to disrepute as a result of the friendship between Thjazi and the General.
        The General reveals that House Tachonis is after Occtis and Lady Aranessa agrees that he is in danger.
        Lady Aranessa insists the gala continues as planned as Julien’s hangover amplifies his nausea.

      • 03:15:03 The morning crackling ritual of Kattigan and some Thieves' Cant to Wulfric to “find the pixie.”

      • 03:17:44 The highest neighborhood of Dol-Makjar is called Marud (the Grey Tower where the Revoutionary Council meets) and you see a Bird Mention falcon rest upon the monument there…rock doves…

      • 03:20:12 Azune clocks in at the Brethren Hall. Many new notices of rules being applied to the populace. Captain Edrian Fazir of the Arcane Marshals has Sir Harondus Einfasen of the Chamber of the Lords-Advisory in his office. Harondus’s accent and desire to shut down services (like Revolutionary Guard stations for the Arcane Marshals) is reminiscient of the infamously reckless DOGE cuts by Elon Musk.

      • 03:28:24 Luis:“How hungry does he look?..There’s something about people who are power-hungry. When they’ve finally pulled enough strings and positioned themselves for this very moment, where he looked at me and said I’m you new boss and I just want to see how much pleasure there was behind his eyes because if there is a hunger there for that kind of power, then it’s just tasted something very sweet, maybe, and I want to see if I can notice.”

      • 03:29:56 You see a person whose entire core philosophy, rather than being brickwork, is a solid monolithic cube of “of course I should be in charge” and everything else gets built on top of that. [Taliesin’s reaction is great]

      • 03:31:29 Taliesin:“What this college needs is capitalism!”
        Marisha:“Nooo!”

      • 03:33:40 Fan Art Moment Familiar-Only skybridges at the Penteveral

      • 03:34:23 Dean Ellipides Tallbarrel has already been removed under the guise of early retirement.

      • 03:35:35 On top of this massive desk is a much smaller desk…

      • 03:36:44 E.T.:“I no longer believe it is possible to do the work that is necessary to do here in this place…If I had tried to fight them…[this is] a letter from the Revolutionary Council to accept the advisement from the Chamber of Lords to revoke the license to cast arcane magic on student grounds here. And they’re not going to do it if I resign…They prefer Kora.”

      • 03:38:08 Murray invents a pocket snake metaphor after learning of the Houses’ intent to ban spellcasting at the wizardry school

      • 03:39:54 E.T.“…you want me to say How do you like these Lightning Bolts? and shoot her in the face? Just shoot her in the face. Kaplow! You are considering it!”

      • 03:45:22 Lord Primus Tachonis arrives in the Dean’s office seeking Occtis.
        Brennan:“Alex, I’m fuckin COMIN for you, man!”

      • 03:49:11 Shadia (Thaisha’s daughter) wants to know Occtis’ availability.
        Thaisha:“He’s never had sex.”

      • 03:52:00 Thaisha recalls Julien and Vaelus being undesirable guests.

      • 03:53:18 Laura finds something funny to show Alex

      • 03:56:16 Thaisha:“We started a war that freed us and threw the rest of the world into chaos. We owe it to the world to fix what we can.”

      • 03:57:32 Thimble acquires some additional items.

      “A promise from a fairy is no small thing. Even from a fairy so small.”

      • 03:58:48 Laura keeps Alex close.
      • 03:59:59 Hal:“Hair of the Dog for you and the dog?”
      • 04:00:20 Kattigan eats like the lost boys from Hook
      • 04:05:23 You wonder if that mischievous half-grin on his face is that the trick he’s smiling at is that the life he lived led you to believe he might be fooling even about this.
      • 04:07:27 This letter to Bolaire had to get to Murray!
      • 04:09:01 Tell Thimble not to be afraid.
      • 04:10:58 Kattigan:“It’s a musk.”
      • 04:12:14 A late-morning tavern always has a vibe like the circus just left.
      • 04:14:25 Solomon, Crow Keepers’ Guildmaster
      • 04:14:56 Aabria:“Let’s fucking go, Tinkerhell!”
      • 04:19:12 Lore Drop Moment Glowing facial tattoos are made from “filament” from the great Radiant Chalice.
      • 04:19:51 Tyranny:“Let’s stay pure.”
      • 04:21:40 Enmity:“The Photarch has made a decision. You won’t have to keep any terrible little secrets for much longer.”
      • 04:22:56 The Prismatic Retort is the mechanism used to create liquid filament. Wicander’s “promotion” feels suspicious. Ancient Obridimian writing used to convey the celestial language has been left by fallen worshippers of Tansul, false god of the sun.
      • 04:26:13 Tyranny musters the courage to apologize.
      • 04:27:34 40’ tall sarcophagus. Godard has eyebeams under his blindfold that open it.
      • 04:32:31 Yanessa:“Wicky, I’d like you to meet your grandfather.”
      Cooldown
      • “Fuck yeah, Iron Maiden, dude!” - Whitney
      • “Your tiny, cool grandma hit that. She smoked that shit and we have to talk about it.” - Aabria
      • “Bicuspids for days.” - Matt
      • Rhyme? Murray is considered a Holler Punk Wizard Holler: a small, sheltered valley. Something akin to a crevice. It frequently has high walls and some sort of stream cutting through the bottom. In the non-Appalachian parts of the world, they call it a Hollow.
      • “Would you care for a little Shapers’ Anus?” - Liam
      • Occtis’ virginity was predetermined