HC: The By from Byroden isn’t actually from by the road, but it’s By as in Bi as in Two and bisexual cause this town is filled with bisexual twins (Vax & Vex, Opal & Ted)
there was literally a scene where orym ate his own weight in pies and meat in exu. i think they should go back to byroden and let the other guys enjoy themselves too
i mean if theres one thing a town modeled after a texan town (like byroden is) knows, it's that our food is fried, filling, and our tea is like 87% sugar (even aabria made a joke about that lol). theres a reason orym was happy the day he was there; as shit as this area is, i couldnt give up our food if i tried. i think theyd all really like it, and deserve it; i truly think giggling at the sheer absurdity of fried everything while trying it is good for the soul
The Byroden Peachiest Pie Bake-off, 842 PD, colourised.
Part of @artists-guild-of-exandria’s "Traveler's Guide to Tal'dorei" project! It was amazing to get the opportunity to try something completely new for me: pixel art! I hope you love this colourful piece as much as I do.
Opal, Byroden, And a Sense of Mexican/Latino Culture in Exandria
Aimee Carrero is a treasure for bringing Opal to life. She's absolutely my favorite character in EXU, and it's not even close. (That is to say, I love them all, but Opal is just...she's everything. Charismatic, fun to talk to, friendly, a little ditzy and naive, full of herself, show-offy...I could only dream of making PCs like her (and I have tried lol).) And while the character is amazing in and of herself, what she represents actually means so much more to me.
A little backstory. Breaking kayfabe a little here, don't worry, it can still be real to you, damn it, but I am not, in fact, a blue-skinned tiefling with sky blue hair and a silly tail in what some would call "the real world". I'm of Latino descent, specifically Mexican-American, first generation. My parents are from Chihuahua and Durango, Mexico, respectively, and came to the US to make a better life for themselves, finding each other and bringing me into this world in the process. Spanish was my first language, and although it's long since been supplanted by English as my default language, I still speak it enthusiastically when with my family.
I grew up going to fiestas, celebrated several quinceañeras for various cousins and my own sister, went to misa (church service) every Sunday as a good Catholic boy, and took several trips to Mexico over the years to visit grandparents and family.
And at some point, I kind of grew ashamed of that.
Apparently, it's not entirely that uncommon, and kind of understandable. For me, it's hard to say what caused this change in my mentality. It might have been because all around me, everyone spoke English and lived the culture of America (which is a paradox in its own right, considering the hodgepodge of culture that is America). Maybe it was leftover resentment from being put into basic ESL courses in 1st and 2nd grade despite being one of the fastest-learning readers of English in Kindergarten. (I won the limo-pizza party prize from Dominos for reading so many books, damn it!)
Whatever the case, by 6th grade, I was almost exclusively speaking English everywhere, only begrudgingly speaking Spanish when talking to my parents because that's basically all they spoke. I rolled my eyes at things like Pinatas at birthday parties and going to Church (though that might have just been my growing agnosticism). Hell, even my name changed; Arthur is just the Anglicized version of my real name. I'll let you figure that out. And in high school it got really bad. I basically had to take Spanish classes to get back some semblance of speaking the language, and even then I wasn't super happy doing it.
Since then, after maturing a fair amount, I've recovered most of my Spanish speaking ability and patched things up, largely, with my parents. Turns out moving out is all I needed to get the ball rolling! How about that.
Part of that recovery journey has been connecting a bit more over time with my Latino roots. Movies like Coco and Encanto helped recover my interest in a lot of those roots, and I started to more and more gain confidence in those roots. Slowly but surely I started to weave those Mexican roots back into my own storytelling. My favorite Original Characters, Rhys and Uniqua Plateado (from a RWBY AU called AXUR I made with my best friend that I may talk about some day) were deeply entrenched in Mexican/Spanish roots (or the Remnant equivalent of same), with Uniqua in particular deriving her battle style/armor design from both Spanish Flamenco and Mexican Jarabe. More and more of my writing was influenced by the culture of Mexico and the American Southwest.
And then the bomb that is Opal dropped.
To quote Aimee Carrero: "My first question when creating Opal was: 'What’s the Exandria equivalent of Laredo, TX?'"
It turns out that through talking to Matt Mercer, Aabria Iyengar, and creative down at Whitestone Towers (yes I did just make another wrestling joke What Of It), Aimee had created a hub of Exandrian-flavored Mexican culture. Before, Byroden was just a town in the twins' backstory, the site of tragic loss. Now, it was a lively community filled with wonderful cuture, debutant balls, and so much potential.
Because of that inspiration, I was able to finally fill in the gaps for my most beloved player characters' backstories. I was able to find a home for the Cena family, now officially retconned to be their true form: Ex-icans! (please don't shoot me it's a bad name but it's got spirit)
I was able to integrate its culture into my own campaigns. Several prominent Latino wizarding/magic families now live there in my campaigns' version of Exandria. Spanish flows there, and you can visit La Purisima Panaderia for a sweet treat (definitely named for a wonderful Panaderia in my local area that popped one of my players, another Latino native to the area). My main OC family, the Cena's, has a set of triplets among then, two of them (the bitchy, bratty ones) named after two characters from a legendary meme-worthy telenovela (and yes, this was mostly to have one of them spout the funny catchphrase). The third was named for my most beloved Aunt Leticia, who resides in my soul even 13 years after her passing. (Also apparently also named for the protagonist of said telenovela but that was actually a complete accident. Also the elder sister was named for an alias the protagonist of that telenovela takes at one point you know what I'm just gonna say I'm the 6th remake of Betty La Fea and be done with it.)
I was even able to put some of my own mother's heritage in my games! In my version of Byroden, a family owns a toy shop (that has all sorts of cool arcane toys and gadgets). However, its biggest attraction is an arcane doll that supposedly was a human woman at one point...and she sits dormant, celebrated every year by the people of Byroden around the point of Harvest's End. This was inspired by a similar story of a mannequin supposedly created by an embalmed bride-to-be, a legend in Chihuahua.
While I could definitely have done this on my own in some way, having that inspiration come when it did, when my own journey to recover that identity was at its peak, did so much to help show me how cool it could be to integrate that into my storytelling. I'm more excited than ever to implement my roots into my storytelling, and it's all thanks to one cute girl with white hair, a pink jacket, and a penchant for tying good knots. So thank you, Aimee Carrero. Now please bring my girl home, spider mommy is scawy and I don't wanna say goodbye to my giiiiiiiiiiiirrrrrrrrrrrrlllllllllll
also on another note though it's never been properly discussed Vax and Vex are a bit brown canonically and are from Byroden so um....maybeIheadcanonthatWeClaimThemokaybye
Gonna take the chance to talk about Elaina’s Garden because it makes me very soft.
In the re-built town center of Byroden there is a park, flowers and edible plants free for the taking growing around a central area. In that area, village elders tell stories and teach classes on skills of all sorts, the most popular of which being sewing and needle arts. In the center there is a fountain with a plaque directly referencing Elaina, a living memorial to furnish her community.
It’s a popular place for less formal gatherings too, such as dates and picnics, and it’s revered as a place to escape. A place where the only thing that matters is community.
Holiday celebrations are also commonly held here, such as fairs for Highsummer, and during the Night of Ascension, the plaque is visited with reverence, and it’s not uncommon to encounter a slightly too-smart raven in the area.
Send me a location, group or other thing in Exandria and I’ll let you in on a little of my personal worldbuilding!
Byroden, Tal'Dorei: Byroden is a rapidly-growing frontier town in the south of the Tal’Dorei Republic. It is the hometown of Vox Machina’s twins Vex’ahlia and Vax’ildan, as well as Opal of the Crown Keepers. When the twins spoke of the place they left in 793, they considered it a backwater farming village, but after being razed by a dragon in 795, It was significantly changed by the time the Crown Keepers visited in 842.
image is official art by blacksalander
Jrusar, Marquet: Jrusar is the capital city of the Oderan Wilds. It has a very distinctive appearance, as it is built into the sides of five stone tower formations rising above the Oderan jungle. The steep cliffsides give rise to stacked streets, and the city is navigated by means of cablecars, small air vehicles called brumeskippers, and flying mounts called simurghs. The tallest tower has a heavily-trafficked skyport, and skyships are often seen docked there.
Happy 2nd anniversary to the pilot for Exandria Unlimited!
The vicegrip this story still has on my heart after 2 years. It’s a reverse Campbellian monomyth!
The story starts and ends in the World of Adventure; Emon in the first episode and amidst ruined Niirdal-Sarqat in the last.
But Opal’s Magic Elixir — thing that powers her third act power-up and final choice — is back over the threshold in Byroden in the form of her revitalized connection with home, family, and community.
So in honor of Father's Day last week, I think the best support Opal can get for apogee solstice shenanigans is a visit from dear ole Dad.
