#c1e106

[loudestlibrarianongodsgreenearth]

Scanlan helping Vex complete Pelor’s challenge by turning her into a dragon, giving her wings, and Vex helping Scanlan complete Ioun’s challenge by flying him on her broom…

[your-turn-to-role]

well into the final CR1 arc and I have decided to become a Sprigg stan account

LOOK BIG MOOD

darin de paul is my favourite guest on cr, hands down

like...

1) the sheer fantastic comedic energy he brought, no other guest comes close, you can see how unexpectedly delighted all the other players are just to see him work, and matt's having a lot of fun playing demistrik too, like... god i've tried to bring sprigg's energy into some of my own npcs while dming because there really is no character more fun to play than an absolutely unpredictable old man with weird strong opinions about everything

(and quirks like the "let's come up with a mnemonic device in case we need to jump him", that are way longer than the phrase itself, in full earshot of everyone, just, fantastic)

2) i love the legacy just sprigg as a character brings? i don't know if you know this already if you're just watching it, but, sprigg's been alone for 37 years because darin de paul last played sprigg 37 years ago, in a campaign with matt's mother

like! he's full of history because he literally is full of history, and it's a legacy that's deeply personal to the show by nature of being a family relation to the dm!

3) [and, spoilers for 106 and 107, don't know where you're up to] i've talked about this before i'm sure but... darin de paul could not have brought a better character for everyone's character arcs if he tried

especially vax and keyleth

bc like... what they're dealing with right now is keyleth's worst fear. she was hesitant about getting in a relationship at all because she knew her lifespan was in the thousands of years and she didn't want to get close to someone and then outlive them. she didn't want to let things matter to her and then risk losing them, and vax helped her get away from that

he convinced her it was worth it, and then this happened. they know one way or another only one of them makes it out of this alive, and it's probably not vax. (he even has the line in 107, "i know the chance you took on me, and i've confirmed your worst fears and then some")

and neither of them are okay, meeting sprigg, bc it's that huge reminder, because sprigg ran away, and his friends died, and he forgot all their names

and everyone else thinks sprigg is just talking nonsense but keyleth looks at him and sees a mirror, she understands him perfectly and it's terrifying

and like. vax and keyleth haven't talked about this, at this point, because they don't know how to, and they're scared to even face each other. and i think, had sprigg not showed up right here, they might have done that for all the time they had left. because neither of them knew how to face this, it was just too overwhelming

but here he is. keyleth's worst possible ending. alone, left with half a mind, paranoid, stuck in this hut in the forest building traps. everyone he ever cared about has faded from his mind. and vox machina, they just found out percy and vex got married in secret, and while scanlan's teasing them, vax and keyleth are angry and silently crying in a corner, because they can't ever have that, and what do they do in this meantime, where vax is a walking ghost and they know that time's almost up, and keyleth is so desperate not to be alone?

(and the gods, too, sprigg hates ioun, even though he's her champion, he doesn't think she ever helped him and he'd be better off without her. and keyleth never understood how the raven queen helped vax, she only saw the ways in which he got hurt, and she's never been one for gods either)

but those things aren't gone. none of them are gone, sprigg's just been distracted from them. he does come to remember them, with the right help, and that's the first spark of hope for keyleth. for both of them, because he is vax and keyleth in one, he's been the lone survivor, but he keeps his friends in his heart, and he chooses to fulfill his duties to ioun and stay with her as her champion. it's reassuring vax, too, that he's not just walking into oblivion.

and it's that that grants them the courage to face up to this and talk to each other, and actually maybe be somewhat okay with this

and i could be here all day if i detail everyone, but to briefly go into it, percy and scanlan too

because ioun's library is an important step in percy's arc, which has always been about legacy. he's deeply concerned with legacy above everything, and has been absolutely devastated by both the loss of his family, his city, and their family history (matt mentions at one point the briarwoods burned a lot of the family records and percy looks so angry at that), and the fact that, under the influence of a demon, he then turned his own legacy into one of mass murder. there's a lot of important steps in percy's character arc but all of them relate in some way to, what came before me, and what do i leave for others

and this is the first spark of hope he's ever seen! he argues with keyleth in 56 about the importance of monuments, they're not about pride, they're about remembering those who came before (and, again, percy and keyleth's arcs, incredibly interlinked), and percy has none. everything that makes him has been deliberately destroyed by someone, and that's incredibly difficult for him to deal with. but here, in this library, is a record of everyone who ever lived. he doesn't have to shoulder the responsibility and guilt of turning the sole legacy of hundreds of years of family history into one of destruction. because these records are permanent, no matter what happens, his family mattered, because they're here, and no amount of fuck ups on his part can destroy that

and scanlan, scanlan's singled out by sprigg immediately. and that may just be because he's the only other gnome present, but sprigg was right, they do have a connection. because scanlan ran away. he saw the tide turning into things he wasn't ready to face up to, and he did exactly what sprigg did, and didn't care about the consequences. and he's now realising how badly that hurt vox machina

but he has something sprigg doesn't, which is that his friends are still alive. sprigg's friends died because of his betrayal, but vox machina are here to give him a second chance. and this is the episode where he really steps up. he sees that, he makes a conscious decision to not be like sprigg, and for the first time in his life, he takes responsibility. and it's scanlan stepping up that saves them

[merindab]

I’m barreling through the end of C1 and I definitely caught that Vex had been upgraded to The First House of Whitestone from the Third in Percy’s speech in 106:

“She is Mistress of the Grey Hunt of Whitestone, Baroness of the First House of Whitestone. She is my heart and my judgment and the future that I have chosen, and she is the one that I have betrothed to.”

[darewitchstr]

NOT THE WHERE IS LARKIN JOKE COMING BACK THANKS TO IOUN - girl got a sense of humouuuuuur

[annemarieyeretzian]

percy apologizing to keyleth “I’m sorry, by the way. you may be the only one who understands this, but I needed something that was mine for a little while. so little of who we are is ours, and I knew it would end, but it was nice.” and keyleth saying “I hope you know my frustration is only out of... wanting something to be mine that I won’t have.” and percy saying “well, we’ll see. I don’t know.” – because he’s still planning, so sure they can save vax – and adding “one of the bonuses of not being one of the chosen of the gods is we don’t have to believe in destiny.”

[catrollsdice]

Pike drawing the symbol of the Stormlord for Grog and then Yasha worshipping the Stormlord is just poetic justice for Ashley’s characters.

[nott-gay]

“And Scanlan, dont ever forget how important you are, to them, to Kaylie, and to yourself. You owe yourself far more than you lend.”

[bookantique]

Grog bb!! You got knowledge!! Im so proud!!