The same people who get viscerally angry at the fact that the Pedophile Emperor is still treated as human by TAD's narrative will probably be the same people completely unable to accept that Pairin subjected Maomao to intense childhood sexual abuse.
It's a little ironic, but more importantly, imo, it's extremely sad.
TAD does not mince words about the Pedo Emperor. It sets up this MASSIVE plot point about how structural systems enable and even encourage abuse; physical, emotional, and sexual. It has our secondary protagonist, Jinshi, realize that his actions and position has made him so similar to his "father" that the resemblance almost made a victim kill herself. It does this IN A GRAVEYARD DEDICATED TO THE VICTIMS WHO HAVE ALREADY DIED.
In his desperation to escape it, he has never been closer to resembling a sexual predator. It's not subtle.
But to tell that story, you HAVE to understand that the Pedo Emperor was still human. This is NOT "excusing" or "justifying" his actions, it's explaining how a person can get there-- SO it can be avoided.
Pairin is a character in conversation with this. It's the narrative portraying another aspect of CSA: How survivors often still love the people who hurt them.
Maomao was raised in a brothel and the woman she considers closest to a mother is a nymphomaniac. Calling it "training" doesn't change the fact that this is a child being made to do sex acts until the authority figure was satisfied with her performance. It severely impacted her ability to navigate intimacy.
That's trauma. Plain and simple. Maomao's personality is influenced by her experience with childhood sexual abuse.
And you, the audience, have to be right there with her!! She LOVES Pairin, still! Goes to her for comfort and advice! She's family. The staff at Verdigris is family.
And they hurt her.
Both of these things will be true, forever. Unlike Jinshi, Maomao doesn't have a layer of distance that allows her to fully understand or internalize that what happened to her was wrong.
It's the sort of complex, painful dynamic I've yearned to see portrayed for a very long time. I wish it could be discussed more candidly, both not downplaying the harm or defending the abuse, WITHOUT insisting the opposite, that every predator must be a malicious, amoral hellbeast.
Ignatius falls, Adelaide makes up, Tadgh shoots his shot, Lucretia offers a piece of her mind, and Zelda takes a bow.
Previously On // Next Session
Ignatius awoke alone in the darkness after a cloud of noxious gas knocked him, and the rest of the party, out. He started to explore the empty cavern, praying out for any help. He was answered by the disembodied Auril, who told him she was far away but believed he would make it out.Ā
Alderiche, by contrast, continued to needle Ignatius to lean into the hunger as he walked through the cavern and begging for the son of the Frostmaiden. Ignatius pointedly resisted, stumbling into Tadgh and enraging Alderiche in the process. In response, Alderiche went to bite the two of them and caught Tadgh, somehow progressing the deep curse to stage 4 in the process. He took this bravely before observing with his near 6th sense that there were a handful of undead creatures scattered throughout the cavern. The party, now back on its feet, split up to attempt to deal with them.
This took some amount of running around, with Ignatius nearly getting knocked out again. He prayed to Auril one more time, who promised she had someone in the area coming. The avatars of Alderiche began to fall one by one, including to said cavalryāa stranger in an owl mask and a great feathered cloak. After a brief standoff with Lucretia, they took off together to help take out the other avatars of Alderiche.Ā
Meanwhile, Ignatius faced down against one last one but wound up getting knocked out. He woke up to an open ribcage with a great mass of slime and meat biting into him using his own ribs as teeth. Alderiche boasted out that he was at last granted a body, and sucked Ignatius down into the floor.Ā
Alderiche errupted again in the main room, slumping to life as a giant slug-monster with Ignatiusā torso growing out of the top. What was left of the party squared up to fight, losing hope as Alderiche knocked them aside until Zeldaās body stood up from the floor. In one final blaze of glory she turned to Ignatius, reminding him of something heād said long agoāāYou once said to me, let your friends be your purpose. i return that to you. let your friends be your redemptionāābefore successfully blasting awya the shambling corpse of Alderiche. She brought Adelaide back to her feet, and the party stood for a half second as the last sluggy bits of Alderiche gave way to the sacred guts.Ā
The cave then started rumbling and collapsing as Alderiche, whoād become part of the land itself, gave away. Zelda threw up a wall to stop the party from getting any closer to her and sent her on her wayāthough not before telling Adelaide that she was sorry, and that she shouldnāt blame herself. In that moment her body gave up to the pressure of too much magic being poured into a mortal form, and she dissolved into energy and golden smoke which drifted off towards the exit.Ā
Ā The party then scrambled to safety. Ignatius was still unconscious, so Meta helped Lucretia shove his pieces into the bag of holding. She then tripped as she made her way out and saw a glimpse of the Bleached Man. It greeted the party, speaking ominously about their continued utility to it before offering them all a half-blessingābad luck to those who would oppose them. Despite this blessing Vertebra stumbled, and Adelaide and Lucretia went back to go help her. They panicked for a second as the flood of water from behind them started to rise up, but Code came through on a horse to pick up the rest of them.Ā
The man in the owl mask suggested he could hold off the flood of water threatening to drown them all for long enough for people to swim, while Tibia said he could teleport one person out of there. Adelaide made him grab Lucretia, which he did, while the rest of the party went floating upwards through the surface of the lake. They emerged on the shores of the lake around Loveborough, where Adelaide awoke to Code doing CPR on her. They had a moment to see a whirlpool form in the surface of the lake before a pool of cursed sludge emerged and bodies started to rise to the top.Ā
Meanwhile Tibia and Lucretia appeared into the chambers of the president in Tenth Bridge. After a tense bit of sniping back and forth during delivering the status report, Tibia dragged Lucretia back into the room to hear the newsāHornsbrook had declared war on High Brook, because they found Queen Farlander dead next to High Brook Operatives, Webshrine declared war on High Brook for similar reasons, and Redben was also on the path to war. They quickly arranged themselves to go off and find the rest of the party in Loveborough to figure out what would come next.
Meanwhile, the party in Loveborough watched as Queen Farlander got dragged up to the surface. She fell upon President Valery, begging for help, but Adelaide spotted that she was already consumed by the deep curse. Valery tried to insist they could get Ignatius to help, but Tadgh took the matter in his own hands and laid her to rest. With her last breath, she thanked him. The party then turned back towards Tenth Bridge.Ā
They reconvened when they met up in the middle of the road. As the information came out, Valery insisted they go to ground. The owl-masked man turned to leave, stopping when he realized Adelaide and Tadgh were staring at him. When he asked them why, they explained his resemblance to an old colleague. He reacted poorly, shattering his own mask in a fit of excitement and revealing a confused man beneath itāwho proceeded to die of drowning in an empty forest. Valery ignored that, and turned back to the plan: the party would be split to stay in different safehouses until the mission to recover the sacred corpse parts could be resumed. Adelaide would go with Radius to the Purple Mice in Loveborough, where she could be close to Code and Tiara. Ignatius would go with Meta to his old home in Twentieth Bridge. Tadgh would go with Zullie to Enigmaās old compound. Tibia and Lucretia would go to Crownshore City, to keep an ear out amongst the elves. They set out that night.
As the roads diverged, members of the bonesnappers peeled awayāto wait out the years of war, and see what would become of this strange new world.
The Bonesnappers will return in The Five Lands: Season 3
started my first dark urge run for baldurās gate 3. was almost going to make them look like zelda so she could terrorize another world in her second life. but faerun deserves better (that malicious lizard is cheeked up)
mark it in the books. today, March 15th (the ides of march) officially marks our halfway point through the Five Lands Campaign. we started this over a year ago in January of 2025, and in honor of that, here are some of our beloved quotes without context
"Your threats mean nothing to me white man." (first ever recorded QWC, Zelda's player to DM)
"āTHATS it iām starting the spreadsheet because thats a war crime." (Baronet)
"The sign changes from closed to very closed." (God himself)
"I don't care how good his tits are, vote him off the island." (Tadgh's player)
"I wouldn't say it's an orgy, but it's close to it." (God, again)
"What's science in the face of yaoi?" (Zelda's player)
"Tadgh is not a written knowledge guy, he's more of an oral history kind of guy" "That is just a way to say he's illiterate" (Tadgh's player, Ignatius's player in response)
"Call him Ignatius Vitamix." (Ignatius's player)
"Where in the five lands do a banana grow?" (Baronet)
"What Should I do?" "Kill it, Kill it with fire, Kill it for good" (Zelda's player to Baronet)
"Do you think of a single fucking thing that comes out of your fucking mouth???" (VERY SPECIFICALLY, Adelaide to Ignatius)
"That's it you lost your skin privileges." (Ignatius's player about Meta)
"If I snore loudly enough can I give her advantage on insight?" (Tadgh's player)
izzy806
kaledo-art
dededos
origamiaround
prguitarman
theartofmadeline
germansingergirl
turnnoffyourmind
pixelskylines
discoholicmusic
