#erathis

[floweroflaurelin]

I will keep your promise. I will be worthy.

—

Goodbye, Emissary 😢😢

[shobogan]

Divine Onion Headlines Pride Month Text Memes

[noshirdalal]

Folks were asking how I came to my thoughts on The Lawbearer...

My basic premise all stemmed from a notion... perhaps the Gods do not choose their pantheons, but the choices they made in the Before Times defined them in ways they never expected... or wanted. And for some of the Gods, their pantheon is not just the source of great power, or a heavy burden of responsibility, but a yoke that they suffer under.

I love backstory, too, I make up head-canon like crazy: I dreamt of titanic battles between The Lawbearer and The Wildmother before they were lovers... when they were mortal enemies, championing their domains... The Wildmother fighting to keep the world natural and feral, The Lawbearer carving out bastions of protection where civilization may take root. But the one cannot coexist with the other. I think those fights scarred the lands of Exandria... massive mountain peaks made from the broken teeth of a Wolf of mythic proportions... canyons and rivers formed from the spinning shards of a Divine Axe, shattered in combat.

Also... The Lawbearer is often depicted fully hooded, wearing a blindfold, or hidden behind an almost mask-like visage... I think her perfectly symmetrical face now bears deep scars from those times. A constant reminder that balance, civilization, and community must be fought for. That peaceful times are bought with the blood of the faithful. And that love often comes with a terrible price.

[toaarcan]

Molaesmyr, or "Why wiping out a city is okay if you're me", by Ludinus Da'leth.

I was waiting for a drop like that, to be honest. To find out that Ludinus has already done what was, for the gods, their darkest moment, and for him it was Tuesday.

The gods destroyed Aeor because Aeor was pointing a gun at their heads, for them it was self-defence and they still tried to find other options first. Ludinus destroyed Molaesmyr to try and reach the moon, and wrote it off as an acceptable loss.

And the thing is, the people of Molaesmyr were just as, if not more helpless against Ludinus than Aeor was against the gods! Aeor had a god-killing weapon in their basement that they were gearing up to use! And when the gods did attack Aeor, they had to do so in mortal form, which rendered them much weaker. For the first half of the battle in the Factorum Malleus, Aeor is winning, the gods are losing HP and falling to bad saving throws and getting interrupted at every turn. It's only once SILAHA gets free of the stun and manages to drop his Meteor Swarm on the wards that the tide turns.

There was no such chance for Molaesmyr. They probably didn't even know what he was doing until he'd already exploded their homes. They weren't pointing a gun at him. They were just in the way.

But it's okay when Ludinus has vastly more power than anyone else and throws their lives away to achieve his goals.

I think gods like the Dawnfather, the Everlight, the Arch Heart, the Lawbearer, the Knowing Mistress, and the Matron of Ravens care vastly more about the mortals that Ludinus claims to champion than he does. I think it broke their hearts to kill as many as they did, while for Ludinus, it was easy.

[rann-poisoncage]

1 of 3 !

[smilelikeawolf]

Ioun: "The only way to protect this world is to step away from it and seal the door behind us."

The Matron: "This is the only home I've ever known."

Melora: "This was ours. We, we... no! No!"

Erathis: "Look how far they came, my love. They almost overtook us by force."

The Matron: "If we do this it protects them from the others as well."

Pelor: "We protect them."

Erathis: "Do we? Look at what you've wrought, Dawnfather."

The Matron: "I have ushered many souls this day."

Erathis: "We killed them for being good. My heart is tired."

[ludinusdaleth]

-Critical Role Campaign 3, Episode 101, "Downfall Part Three"

[somewhatsentientspellbook]

erathis really asked "is she mad at me?"