#caduceus clay

[chaoticbeau]

these adventure dice sets 😍😍

[naiatabris]

Critical Role Campaign 2, Ep 110: Cad's Speech

I listened to this episode ages ago, but it has stuck with me ever since, and in this post I plan to make it everyone else's problem 😂

Spoilers for C2E110 below the cut.

OK. If you haven't listened to this episode in a while, it's the one where the Mighty Nein have dinner with Trent Ikithon, the wizard who groomed Caleb into becoming a killer and manipulated him into murdering his own parents. Trent waxes poetic about how he had to do all of this to help Caleb realize his full potential. Lots of gross "it hurt you more than it hurt me" type stuff.

And at the end of the dinner, Caduceus the cleric, the gentle firbolg, looks this monster dead in the eye and says:

"May I say, before you go... I think perhaps you are one of the most powerful mages that I've ever had the pleasure to be in the presence of. For this I would offer a gift. I think it has been a long time since anyone has pointed out to you that you're a fool.

"Pain doesn't make people. It's love that makes people. The pain is inconsequential. It's love that saves them. And you would know that, but you have none around you. You said so yourself. You surround yourself with lies and deception, and... I wish for you in the future to find someone who will mourn you when you are gone.

"Respectfully."

Trent's goal in inviting the Nein to dinner is to sow doubt in the group. He wants them to be afraid of Caleb. More than that, he wants them to be afraid of him, of what he might do to them if they stand in the way of his plans for Caleb. And he wants Caleb to feel that, in some twisted way, he owes Trent. That everything he's achieved, everything he's learned, is because of what Trent put him through.

And there, in his own dining room, Caduceus calls him a fool, showing him that they're not scared of him. Cad says that it's love that shapes people, denying Trent any credit for the wizard and man Caleb has become.

I don't think Trent believes Caduceus. I don't think he has a big revelation about the power of love or regrets anything he's done after hearing Cad's speech. But when Caduceus calls him an idiot in his own house, he knows these people aren't scared of him, that he's gone to the effort of bringing them here to mess with their heads and it's failed. He knows the Nein love Caleb, and they're not going anywhere. SUCH good stuff.

[fishmechs]

[dead-people-tea-party]

Hey, there :) Oh, hm. I think I've only got three more cups. Hold on...

Welcome to the Dead People Tea Party!

Dead People Tea Party is a fanworks celebration of our favorite Firbolg cleric Caduceus Clay.

Submit prompts to the collection on AO3, create fanworks, and celebrate Caduceus as his own person!

Schedule

Aug. 25 — Prompts open Sept. 1 — Collection opens for finished works Sept. 19 — Final day to submit new prompts Sept. 30 — Final day to post finished works

How does it work?

Come up with up to ten fanwork prompts that focus on Caduceus and submit them to the AO3 collection.

Creators (authors, artists, etc) browse the prompts for ideas that inspire them.

Creators submit completed works to the collection by September 30.

How can I help?

Spread the word! There's lots of tea to go around :)

More details and a full FAQ can be found on the AO3 collection!

What prompts are eligible?

Anything that focuses on Caduceus Clay is welcome!

What types of fanworks can I make?

Anything that can be posted on AO3! That includes art, fic, gifsets, edits, or meta.

Do I have to submit prompts in order to fill works? Do I have to create works in order to submit prompts?

Nope! Submitting prompts and creating works are separate, and while many people do both, you don't have to do one to be able to do the other.

What are the minimum requirements for prompt fills?

Minimum of 100 words, a doodle, or an equivalent amount of work from another medium. Apart from that, as long as it fulfills the prompt, it can be as long or detailed as you'd like!

—

Icon and banner by @warmer-gaze.

[veveen]

I dug through some depths and found some old fan art! Pleasantly surprised

Can you tell who my favorite was (and maybe still is) ?

[irrelevantellipses]

Remember wondering early on during my first watch-through if Caduceus was undead or something. Nope. He's just like that.

[ilmarisart]

🌻 Cleric tea time 🍭

[asexxxualerotica]

C2E42: 3:28:38

This is hilarious to me because Taliesin has every right to complain about this in this moment.

To be clear, earlier in this episode, Nott and Jester come up with a plan to sneak into Avantika’s cabin to get some secrets from her. Before they go, Caduceus offered to grant them Enhance Ability for Dex so they can sneak around, but they convince him to give them the Charisma boost instead because they intended to bluff their way onto the ship disguised as Avantika and Eipis. They then immediately abandon that plan and just Dimension Door right into her room, bumble-fuck their way through the office because they don’t have advantage on Dex, and never once use Charisma during the investigation or the escape.

And now, after telling them that they do not need to waste time or energy trying plant the stolen gems on someone else because it’s gonna be too confusing, they decide to put the gems inside a lead safe inside the Bag of Holding—so inside a magic-proof box inside a detection-proof bag—only to now at the last second lob up the suggestion to cut a hole in the wall to shove the gems into and seal back up with Mending.

And just listening to this in general, I absolutely understand Taliesin’s frustration. But also, having the hindsight knowledge that the interrogation they’re about to go to is going to break out into a conflict anyway, I’m double annoyed.

Is it all in character? Sure, I absolutely understand they’d be this paranoid in this situation. Does it mean I’ll stop pointing out them doing something stupid because they’re panicking? Absolutely not.