#campaign 4 speculation

[mayapapaya33]

What I gathered from Brennan's little jab is that if Occtis gathers too many exhaustion levels he'll devolve into a zombie and start attacking people. ...That's fun. Something to look forward to.

I wonder if it's reversible of if he REALLY just needs to get proper rest forever now, no more late nights. 6 levels of exhaustion is death for everyone else, maybe it's mindlessness for Occtis. That would make sense.

[utilitycaster]

OK sundered houses speculation: as they are pretty much stated to be tied to sorcerous bloodlines and a creature type, my guess is:

Tachonis: Shadow, undead (the former heavily implied with Primus, the latter basically confirmed with Pin)

Cormoray: Draconic, dragons (Cold open of episode 2 has a Cormoray sorcerer summon a drake; if this is correct the association with dragons is self-explanatory)

Royce: Wild Magic, fae (latter confirmed, former best fit of the sorcerer subclasses for that type of magic)

Einfasen: Unknown however I do think it would be both genuinely fitting and extremely funny to go with Clockwork. Clockwork is associated with constructs/and specifically modrons in general D&D lore but I think general constructs would be the move here.

Halovar: Demons are confirmed, and I think we're all assuming Divine Soul for the subclass. However, the claim that the Halovars were once priests and the recency of the Candescent Creed, plus the fact that the celestial line was introduced only two generations prior indicates that perhaps this wasn't always the case. I wonder if they actually were clerics until the Shapers' War and so they were the house that had to adapt; if so then I also wonder if the Royces were traditionally archfey warlocks rather than sorcerers. I think this would give Halovar a really fascinating motivation to close the doors to faerie to knock out competition, in a very "we had to scrape together and pivot after the war; why didn't you?"

[sun-critrole]

My CR4 PC tier list is based on Real, Actual people I met while working fast food. Good times.

[trailertrashgrog]

sundered houses

house tachonis. ruled by lord primus tachonis. necromancers/shadow sorcerers

house halovar. ruled by lady yanessa halovar (has rebranded as the candescent creed in recent years). light priests/clockwork sorcerers. 

house royce. ruled by lady aranessa royce. stewards of faerie

house cormoray. ruled by unknown cormoray. wielders of elemental magic

house einfasen. ruled by otto einfasen. descendents of giants

houses tachonis and halovar fought on the pro-god side of the shaper's war. after that, the surviving powerful human sorcerer houses were largely unified. notably, einfasen and royce have "never" been on opposite sides of a conflict (shapers war, war of axe and vine, falconer's rebellion) 

vassal houses: 

house davinos & elbrendi (vassals to royce)

house kerzingblad (vassals to einfasen). possibly also house wolkschif, who rules gerwyn in helvar

house malterres & egerion (vassals to halovar) possibly the d'antonio family

house seremai & vachari (vassals to tachonis)

cormoray vassals unknown, but possibly house dacen (as in lady amariya dacen cormoray's lord-consort husband)

locations:

venatus, seat of house tachonis 

helvar, seat of house einfasen

telmora, seat of house royce

celmyr, seat of house cormoray 

halovar territory unknown (might be permanently in dol-makjar)

in addition to locations around what was once the obridimian empire, each house also appears to have a residence in dol-makjar, though they don't all live there full time.

obrimus manor of house tachonis 

villa aurora of house halovar

palazzo davinos used by house royce 

stahlkeep of house einfasen

unknown for cormoray

broken houses: 

obridai

kalystra

memnari

[icenineporcupine]

I'm back with more rot about campaign 4 that wishes to escape my brain with the same enthusiasm that Pin wants to escape his pocket dimension...

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Ilumi's Blanket...

Brennan has said Aramán mirrors Exandria, especially in how this story reacts to what happened to the gods in C3.

We know Aramán has rings, and that planets usually get rings when a moon or other satellite gets destroyed in orbit.

We also know the “City of Stars” tied to the Shaper of Magic no longer exists.

What I'm hearing is the City of Stars was Aramán’s moon.

What if Ilumi lived on it (or... inside it)? And whatever the gnomes did to kill Ilumi blew the moon apart.

If so, this would be a pretty interesting parallel not only to the whole Predathos situation, but also to Aeor and Avalir. In Exandria, magical cities that defied divine power were felled by the gods. In Aramán, magical cities ruled by gods were felled by mortals...

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Mara the Wing / Mara Weaver...

I've already seen several people mention that Mara is likely the falcon that Thjazi saw before his execution, and I agree. But there's more...

The druids in Schongarten expected Thjazi to be travelling with Mara. But Thjazi seemed shocked to see her.

The way House Tachonis (and others) react to the news of a falcon makes it seem like falcons should be either dead or otherwise gone.

And then there's the whole question of 'why didn't Thjazi break the glyph'?

My take: I think Thjazi might have sent Mara on a mission, much like he sent Thaisha and Occtis to retrieve the coffin of Olbalad. And maybe Mara's mission was to traverse the underworld to uncover what House Tachonis intended for the Old Path.

Regardless, I'm convinced her appearance at the execution didn't frighten Thjazi because he realized he was going to die. I think he'd been planning to die all along—just not then and there. The hasty way he gave instructions to Hal, while also not even attempting to break the glyph, to me reads a lot like 'oh shit, our timeline has just advanced. Time to improvise...'

The fact that she was there, that she was back... maybe it indicated some sort of flaw in the Tachonis plan: a loophole that might let the spirit of a certain war hero walk into their fortress, perhaps?

I wonder if the original way Thjazi was going to enter the underworld was through the coffin of Olbalad.

---

Speaking of Olbalad...

We now have Olbalad, the halfling angel of death, as well as El-Naumri, the elves' equivalent. Psychopomps seem like a major element in this story. That said:

Is the Celestial in the Halovars' basement the humans' psychopomp? If so, Filament sure seems like the sort of thing that might let followers of the Candescent Creed traverse the underworld to counter House Tachonis...

Also: were the Tachonis' trying to turn Occtis into their own angel of death by putting the Stone of Nightsong in him?

---

Mayali, and Azune's mystery ancestry...

I know we Azune lovers have been speculating wildly about his heritage—dragon? primordial? illegitimate Cormoray/Einfasen?—but I am over here wondering if his sister's name (not to mention that entire cold open) might be a bit of a clue. Mind you, I am no etymologist or anthropologist, but:

The name 'Mayali' has a bunch of different possible origins, including Latin/Greek (and their evolutions), Sanskrit, and Hebrew (meaning 'water'). But the most interesting one to me is the Mayali dialect, spoken by some of the indigenous peoples of Australia, for two reasons:

Azune and his people seem to know an ancient language that is forgotten by most of Aramán.

The mythology of these people often features an entity called the Rainbow Serpent.

The Serpent is seen as a creator, carving rivers through the earth and bringing life where there is none. It brings monsoons and other storms. It also is said to turn its followers into humans as punishment.

Sound like any lightning-wielding, human-in-appearance sorcadin we might know?

To be clear: I'm not saying Brennan / Luis are directly lifting the concept of the Rainbow Serpent for this campaign, but I do think it makes sense for Azune to be a follower of Aramán's original creator. This would essentially be the mirror-universe version of Exandria's Luxon.

I think Luis was onto something wildly compelling when he played Zerxus as a paladin seemingly and unknowingly blessed by the Luxon, but Calamity absolutely did not have the space to unpack that. Azune feels like an excellent chance to take the whole concept much further.

Finally, to get really unhinged about everything and bring it full circle: if Azune’s sorcery does come from this creator and/or Aramán itself, then Ilumi shaping wizardry by literally carving a chunk out of Aramán to make a moon becomes… deeply cursed.

In conclusion: fuck Ilumi I guess, goddamn.

[waywardsou2]

My thoughts from today's episode as my first time ever being there for a first. Let alone a first live of something start to finish (my timezone makes things really diccidult)

- Brendan Lee Mulligan is a fucking genius and I cannot believe the effort that has gone into creating the set, the scene, the script and the ambiance of this new campagin

- the switching out of characters as scenes change and plot lines evolve is fucking genius

- I like Luis' character. At first I thought Azune might be a Hinderer of this story in some way but no...so far he seems like a good man

- Tyranny and Wiccander piss me off a bit. This is just my personal bias but the demon bimbo and the Jehovah whiteness aren't doing it for me

- CURSE YOU MATT MERCER. WHY DID YOU HAVE TO PLAY A DOUCHE I WANTED TO SIMP

- I really really like Aabria's character a lot. She's an amazing actor and she brings a lot to the table in an amazing way. Her vibes are amazing, a good mix of serious and fun.

- The family dynamics...everything going on. I will say I'm slightly confused but...from what I do understand I think it's sweet for the most part

- Thimble is my GIRL! I love her so much

- Vaelus and Bolaire are two very mysterious very interesting characters and I am highly intrigued. This isn't anything like I've seen Ashley play before

- Kattigan is fine shit and he is where a lot of my interest lies. He's not the only one who intrigues me but I like him a lot thus far

- Murray is fun, I like her a lot. Not what I thought she would be and I'm glad for that

- Occtis...he is fucking...yeah I want him so bad. Give me that anxiety ridden black back of a man right now. I will pay in gold

- I like that there are a lot of familiars. Aabria's deer, Pin and Dog. I like them a lot :)

- It seems that orcs are very common and for some reason I really like that too. At least 4 orc characters I can think of maybe 5 but yeah, I like that.

- When Wiccander showed up I honestly thought they were going to throw hands. I was pleasantly surprised. I'm very curious to know what was going through his head (and by his I mean the dead guy because I can't remember his name)

- Teor saving Thimble was the sweetest and hottest thing I've heard in a while. I love them to death so much

- This is my first time seeing Alex. And my first thought was "he looks like he jumped off the set of Welcome to The Black Parade" and onto the set of "Whoville" from the Grinch and only half got undressed between the two sets before coming to CR4. My second thought was "hey...he's kinda fine. Like really fine"

[thefriendlymurderer]

Having thought about it a grand total of thirty seconds, I am now in the camp of Vaelus wanting to bring back a dead child. I was so focused on the dead God, but the way she interacted with Occtis, and the way she watched the interaction between Thaisha and Shadia has me thinking that she lost a child during the Shaper's War, and has been mourning both a god *and* a child ever since.

[soliloquy-please]

Omgggg?????

Is Travis gonna join the schemers table????

He's got the charisma to do it, but he definitely wants to be in battles more then the schemers are?