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I am broke and need this information for a thing: can anybody tell me what the Tyrant card in Molly and Jester’s tarot deck is, reversed? And what color dragon it is?
I know they released an official deck, but I can’t get a hold of it. The Tyrant card is two dragons in a figure eight. One is red. What is the color of the other dragon, and what’s the name of the card when it’s reversed? (ie, not the Tyrant, but the...?)
If anyone could help me out, I’d be very grateful.
No guesses based on the stream; please only tell me if you actually have the deck or know someone who does or have otherwise seen it for yourself somehow.
Tim and Scheherazade both have their own books that can absorb stories. One is based on the tales of Mother Goose, the other 1001 Nights.
Now, going off of this, a new possibility has been presented to us. That like these two, there are multiple book holders existing throughout this multiverse, each representing an anthology of stories. We’ve gotten hints of Aesop’s fables, and if the girl Cinderella told Roz about was the Little Mermaid and the kingdom attacking Greenleigh was that of the Snow Queen, we might have a book holder for Hans Christian Anderson’s stories.
Moving on from this, we’ve got one very big, obvious candidate for a book keeper: the Brothers Grimm. Not just because they’re one of the biggest players in terms of compiling fairy tales in contemporary western memory, but Roz, Ylfa, Gerard and PiB all come from Grimm fairytales, so it stands to reason there’s a book for them. This might even be why Goose’s book ate up other characters that touched it but not any of the PC’s; it wasn’t their book.
And as cool as that idea might be, that’s where things get ominous.
Because if Tim has reason to think he needs to be going around absorbing people into his book, then it stands to reason that the Brothers or whoever is holding the Brothers’ book is going to think the same thing about theirs. And who’s in their book? Why, Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding Hood, the Frog Prince, and Puss in Boots.
This might even be why the fairies are so mad to keep their stories on track; they know that if the narrative veers too far from what it’s 'supposed' to be, the Brothers will come along and preserve the story in their book in order to ‘fix’ it. The fairies might view the results of what they’re doing as the lesser of two evils. And no matter how justified the Princesses’ anger and resentment might be, if they don’t know about the Brothers, they don’t know that their crusade could draw their attention and make the Princesses the targets of their editing.
I don’t know where that leaves Pinocchio if all of this is true, but here’s an interesting tidbit: Pinocchio’s story, like Goose and Grimm and 1001 Nights, is an anthology. It was written serially in installments before it was eventually all put together in one book about the titular little wooden boy. So...in theory, he might have his own book as well, which might explain why he caught the Stepmother’s attention.
Addendum: Charles Perault is credited for Histoires ou contes du temps passé, avec des moralités or Contes de ma mère l'Oye (Stories or Tales from Past Times, with Morals or Mother Goose Tales) which was published in the 1600s. Grimm’s Fairytales was published in the 1800s, and many of the tales found in the former would find their way into the latter. So the question becomes: will both be included in this story, given the overlap? Perhaps they won’t.
But if they are, how would that work out? Can a story and the characters thereof belong to more than one book? If not, why do they belong to the book that they do?
Before the finale of EXU: Calamity drops, let’s talk a bit about enabling.
Enabling, for those of you who don’t know, is when you allow another person’s destructive and/or self destructive habits to continue unabated, even when you have the power and are in a position of safety to do otherwise.
For example, let’s say you have a friend who has an alcohol problem. If they claim they’ve gone the day without drinking but you can smell alcohol on their breath or you find fresh bought bottles they’ve hidden somewhere around their place (or both) but don’t confront them about it and don’t ever plan to, that’s enabling. If someone is involved in dangerous or illegal activity and you cover it up, deny you know anything to keep them from getting in trouble, or don’t confront them about the trouble they could get into for their activities, that’s enabling. If someone is in a very bad relationship with someone and constantly covers for them and you either don’t point this out to them or repeatedly encourage them to get back together, that’s enabling. (On their part for their partner and on your part for them.)
With that out of the way, let’s talk about Loquatious and Laerryn.
Loquatious bemoans the fact that he won’t be able to protect Laerryn if she goes through with her experiment, and she tells him she doesn’t need him to protect her. Unfortunately for them both, she’s wrong. And her not being able to see that, I believe, is a result her ex being so good at protecting her she never even saw any of the danger he’s shielded her from up to this point. Not only can we infer this from the message he left behind in an attempt to absolve Laerryn of the guilt of whatever’s going to happen to the city in the eyes of whomever finds it, (a message she and the rest of the Brass Ring are, as of my writing, completely unaware of) but in the fact that Evandrin’s files and the woman who compiled them are gone from Loquatious’s office. Patia thinks it has something to do with the ritual she and Zerxus performed, but the simplest explanation is that they were purged by or on direction from Loquatious himself in order to protect Laeryn.
And it’s not just the exes: Nydas was in on Laerryn’s experiment. Nydus and Patia had a symbiotic relationship going on where she’d shepherd people from her inner circle looking for a deal to Avalir’s Guild Master and wipe any memories from them that needed to be wiped. Loquatious has said that he’s protected all of his friends, which suggests he’s been using his talent for gathering (and destroying) information in order to shield all of the Ring of Brass from the consequences of their actions. And Patia’s agreeing to erase Zerxus’s memory of his husband’s disappearance may very well have dropped him into the lap of a Betrayer god.
These people occupy positions of privilege that give them the ability to make the consequences of their actions go away. But not just the consequences of their actions, but those of the actions of the people that they love. Not only is this bad for the people that they and their loved ones hurt, but it’s bad for the perpetrators themselves. It’s enabling them. Because Laerryn was protected from the consequences of her actions (her experiments and her plans for them were hidden from the rest of the city, and no one knows the truth of what really happened to Evandrin) she was ensconced in a position of privilege where she never had to reconsider anything that she’s done or wants to do. And this isn’t even just about the tree. Yes, Laerryn destroying that tree because she wouldn’t or couldn’t comprehend that its purpose was far bigger and far more important than what she wanted to accomplish with it out of the way was a very, very bad move. But not only was that the case, she couldn’t or refused to see that the rest of the city may not have liked the idea of moving to another plane or could’ve refused it outright, (which would’ve forced her to either give up her quest or essentially kidnap Avalir,) or that there might’ve been some very terrible consequences awaiting a city that just up and jumped to another plane of existence. (Cognoza says: hey.)
Edit: And now that we know what we know about Evandrin, if Laerryn had succeeded they never would’ve been able to come back, as Exandria would’ve essentially developed the planar equivalent of Lupus against them.
There was similar discourse around the time of Traveler Con concerning the Nein, Artagan, and Jester. Now, there were other nastier factors at play here that I’m not going to get into because nope, but there was a small faction that seemed to think that if the Nein truly trusted and respected Jester, they wouldn’t have questioned Artagan’s motives at all and let them both do whatever they wanted without worrying about what could happen to them. And.....nope. Total nope. Absolute nope. It’s true Jester is far smarter and more savvy than she let’s on, but she also grew up alone and desperate for attention and affection because she had to hide away from the world. An upbringing like that makes even the cleverest people alive incredibly vulnerable to the right circumstances or the right people. (or wrong, as it were) You don’t necessarily fall for a con because you’re stupid; you can fall for a con out of desperation just as easily. And in the end the Nein threaded the needle pretty well in letting Jester decide what to do while also planning for things to take a sudden turn. Which is good.... because they totally did.
This is all to point out that: enabling is not love. Enabling is allowing someone to destroy themselves or other people out of the fear that confronting them with their actions will cause them to not like you anymore. This can be a fundamentally selfish act (not caring if someone you love is hurting as long as they still want to be with you) or one where you’re being taken advantage of (where a friend puts you into a position where they keep stringing you along and getting you to cover for them when it’s only hurting you both) or an act of self-preservation (if you’re in a position where it’s not safe to question the person with the destructive and/or self-destructive habits) but no matter the case, it’s not love. It can coexist with love, but don’t ever mistake it for love by itself. Love is not letting your loved one do whatever they want. It’s empowering them to better themselves, if they are a healthy enough person to do something with your support without draining you dry.
And all that is to say that these people, out of a misguided sense of love nurtured into being by their power and privilege, have enabled each other’s destruction. Zerxus Ilerez Cerrit Agrupnin
I find it kind of funny people were actually hoping Brennan was going grey and grey morality with the Betrayer Gods because like....
That opening with Asmodeus? A masterclass in manipulation. We and Zerxus are shown a terrifying, PTSD inducing battlefield....but then Zerxus’s son in relative calmness, then we see Asmodeus in battle with the Dawn Father, bleeding and brutalized, and then we see Zerxus’s husband.
We are given absolutely no context, and this is very purposeful.
Asmodeus not only uses the images of Zerxus’s son and husband as a balm after the imagery and emotion of war and fighting, but to also draw the Paladin in and establish an association between his loved ones and the Betrayer God. No such association may exist at all, but it has now been implied that there is without Asmodeus actually having to say (and lie?) that there is. As for the fight between him and the Dawn Father, we are given no reason why they are fighting; for all we know, (and in all likelihood) Asmodeus deserved the ass kicking he was getting. But we don’t get to see the context for this fight. Asmodeus doesn’t let us see it.
This is lying by omission. You imply things and leave other things out, letting your audience draw their own conclusions. And if those conclusions are false, well....it’s not like you lied.
To say nothing of the meta. If you’ve ever seen any game that Brennan Lee Mulligan has DM’d, he is a master at turning background, seemingly less significant or even benevolent characters into subtle, master manipulators. You might even say for Brennan that it’s a piece of cake.
All that is to say that anybody who thought the GM was pulling a grey and grey morality with the Betrayer Gods for Calamity well....now you and Zerxus know what it’s like to get played by one of those guys. That’s their whole game, (specifically Asmodeus’s) and that’s what it looks like when they play it. You were supposed to feel that way, but just because you felt that way doesn’t mean you could trust how you felt.
Should Laerryn have been able to cast Blight while she was grappled? Blight needs both verbal (words) and somatic (one hand free for gestures) components, and she’d said before she cast the spell she let Nydas grapple her.
Not to undercut the drama or anything I would just find it kind of hilarious.
EDIT: Seems like it’s basically up to the GM’s discretion.
Do you think "The Train" that Wilford mentioned in Wilford Motherloving Warfstache will be in Part 2, a later Markiplier project, or will just end up a loose thread Mark never picks up again?
So just finished In Space With Markiplier and started looking into some theories involving Dorene Whitacre, CC and Cecile and....
Dude, are we Damien and/or Dark? Is this like the Damien short but from a different angle? Both CC and Dorene have monologues adjacent to Cryo, i. e. the deep cold and ice. Spring still hasn't come? Actor!Mark is here (for the first time in a while) and so is Wilford.
You know, thinking about Laudna lately, (for obvious reasons) it suddenly occurred to me that with all the focus on Campaign 1 that her backstory invites, it's easy to miss that she's actually got more than a few parallels with Yasha, from Campaign 2.
Both are almost entirely monochromatic female characters (pale skin, black hair with white in it) who went through traumatic events that severely altered the course of their lives and also bestowed a significant physical change upon them. Both also have very intimidating appearances that bely their true, sweeter natures and temperaments.
I just thought it was so funny how obvious the parallels were once you saw them.
The nods to the second campaign we've seen so far in The Legend of Vox Machina have been amazing, but do you know what I'd die to see before the series comes to an end?
Just one, just one background or one-episode character who has at least a single eye tattoo like the ones Molly had. That would fuck me up.
