#ethedok

[somewhatsentientspellbook]

just vore-do all the way down

[ludinusdaleth]

vax, his hair & his armor in black like a raven. ludinus, his hair & skin as white as the snow of eiselcross. vax, guardian of fate, ludinus, destroyer of it. vax the grim reaper. ludinus the white horse, the horseman. vax, gone too soon. ludinus, alive too long. vax & ludinus, eternally in the purgatory of immortality and undeath. vax & ludinus, both invisible to the matron. vax & ludinus, death & winter. death, winter, and the matron of ravens connecting them.

heretical as it feels to say, they are in some way brothers. kin.

ethedok & vordo in some ways meet again. certainly made in their image.

even as one sheds the others divine blood to end divinity, not knowing he'd choose mortal family over divinity like the other would, too.

[thebeedleboat]

How much of Vordo was still... Alive before being digested?

Predathos had to ration them out, there was a flicker of something after millenia.

Could the devoured gods still think?

Were they waiting to be saved by their family?

[mayapapaya33]

Damn, Vordo (And I assume Ethedok) have been trapped in Predathos' stomach being slowly digested for millennia or even eons? And Bells Hells wanted to risk condemning the rest of the Gods to this fate? Cuz reasons? What the fuck guys?!

(Not to mention this does count as attempted Genocide, the Gods are a species, they (were) ?Born? ?Created? ?Always Existed? ?Sprung into being? like this, so it is a bit discriminatory to be like; No! Bad! Kill them all! Just putting that out there...)

Yes, they are more powerful than mortals. Someone is always going to be more powerful than you, it's unfair, that's life. With all the Gods gone, someone will still be more powerful than you. OR you'll be more powerful than them. Something WILL fill the power vacuum and to pretend it won't is foolish. (Everything will be sunshine and roses comparatively until the eldritch abominations from the astral plane or wherever find Exandria and decide to make a new home with all the tasty snacks on it now that BH has (potentially) driven away the planet's most powerful defenders). And let's be real, the power structure set up Exandria has (had?) going with the Divine Gate and divine and arcane magic is about as good as it's ever going to get with a species and power difference that vast imho.

This hatred of the Gods I've seen both in the campaign and from some fans is the exact same sort of hatred Lex Luther has for Superman if we're being real. He hates Superman because he's stronger and faster and could do whatever he wanted whenever he wanted and almost no one could stop him. And I get that feeling, it's understandable. No one likes feeling small or powerless. But Superman doesn't WANT to do any of that, and it's not his fault he has superpowers.

The light of our yellow sun grants Superman's powers, like the collision with Reality granted the God's domains of power to them. And the only times there is terrible damage and trauma and strife is when Luthor picks a fight and then there are city blocks leveled. Meanwhile Superman is like, hey, would you please chill, I really don't want to be a dictator or anything I swear, I just want to rescue kittens from trees and stop bank robbers and prevent the occasional alien invasion. The only difference as far as I can tell, is that Superman is the main character of his story, and The Exandrian Pantheon aren't the main characters of this one.

And before anyone says anything, Yes, the Calamity was the Gods fighting each other, but I just want to remind everyone once again, that mortals are the ones that kicked that event off in style. The Betrayer Gods were in jail, they were dealt with. Vespin Chloras and The Ring of Brass majorly fucked the world over. (The Ring of Brass also helped save the world, but they helped almost destroy it first so it kind of evens out a bit I guess lol. Is that how that math works? That doesn't feel right.)

As for everyone chanting that the Primes should have just killed the Betrayers... for starters, are you also this pro death penalty in real life? I highly doubt it just based on CR's core demographics lmfao. And second, they already explained that there were some threats in the universe that required the combined might of all of them to face. And I am NOT convinced that they only meant Predathos. That is one hell of a gamble to assume that! (Not to mention they're family and the sole survivors of a terrible cataclysm and refugees in a strange land and they love/hate each other).

Long spiel short, yikes! BH might be the bad guys. Uh Oh!

(I know they were talking about controlling it, but like, how? And to do what? Chase the Gods away? And for how long? Forever? Seems like a somewhat ill-conceived plan lol).

[novasonthenormandy]

Endlessly fascinated continually by the idea of Vordo and Ethedok, despite being consumed by Predathos, that small pieces of them or their artifacts could be out in the world.

After all, who says that Predathos showed up and simply consumed them right away? Perhaps there was a chase, perhaps the gods were savagely attacked by their predator, maybe some of their blood & ichor was scattered as they fled between the planes of Exandria trying to escape before being consumed.

Maybe some of their essence lingers in some tucked away corners of Exandria, perhaps a grove where remnants of Vordo's energy cause an effect not too dissimilar to dunamis. Or a cove that always seems to be in shadow even in the height of summer weather, with only the brightest mid day sun able to pierce the shadows over the area.

[californiannostalgia]

oh dang that laser sound

Travis: "that sound is usually associated with death stuff"

Taliesin-as-Ashton, for the nth time: "anyone within ten feet of me gets a d4"

oh shit it's a giant Disintegrate (can this fucking thing go each turn?? this is fucked up) ("spiritual essence of a long-dead god" okay okay okay)

[swordscleric]

What’s most interesting about the recent god lore, with Predathos consuming both Ethedok and Vordo, is that in a way their vibes and provinces eventually do turn up again in the form of the Raven Queen. She is the goddess of death yes, but she’s also the goddess of fate and winter (at least in Tal’Dorei and Wildemount, whether she is still the goddess of winter in Marquet as the Duskmaven remains to be seen). Additionally, Tharizdun is the god of darkness, meaning that its province is also now a remnant from a time before the Schism and Ruidus.

There’s a few things that are now running around my head: first, the Raven Queen. Since she became the goddess of death, it’s not improbable that as she ascended her ritual also took the godless provinces of fate and winter, becoming the Matron of Ravens we all know and love. Whether or not her apogee solstice also coincided with a Ruidus flare is something to find out in-game but if she became the goddess of fate and winter it’s not the biggest leap to make. The fact that fate and winter were available as provinces to take also may speak to the rest of the gods, both Prime Deities and Betrayers, not wanting to take those provinces out of respect for their dead siblings.

Secondly, Tharizdun. The moment Matt started talking about a creature from “beyond the stars” my mind immediately went to the good old Chained Oblivion. Now that we know one of the forgotten (dead? consumed? ripped from the fabric of the world?) gods was a god of darkness, and that Predathos created its own mockeries of creation, twisted things etc. What if Tharizdun was not actually one of the original gods? What if it is a child of Predathos, a theological chimera of Ethedok’s darkness and Predathos’ destruction?

[amor-est-potestas]

I've borrowed Marisha's tinfoil hat and I'm doing my best Critical Role conspiracy work right now...

Could Predathos be the God of Death that The Raven Queen replaced with her ascension?

The Raven Queen's predecessor was apparently a tyrannical entity, primarily concerned with expanding their domain over the souls of deceased mortals... and part of their domain included Fate and Winter (aspects that The Raven Queen was allowed to keep, as well as the moment of death).

The new implication seems to be that those things have something to do with Ethedok (Endless Shadow - Darkness and Winter) and Vordo (Fateshaper - Fate) being devoured by Predathos.

And I know The Raven Queen's ascension is supposed to have sundered the predecessor's name from reality...

But there has to be some connection here, right?

I have thoughts:

The name wasn't sundered, it was locked away on Ruidus, behind Divine Latticework, with Predathos. Possibly as part of the same process of ascension that The Raven Queen went through. Now that the army of Ruidusborn and Exalted is being amassed, some of Predathos' power is leaking through the Lattice and that's why we have heard the name for the first time? (This doesn't seem the most likely, because I think the general takeaway is supposed to be that Predathos was imprisoned before The Raven Queen ascended... but hey...)

Predathos was sealed away and some of the Gods got pissy about it. It seems like this happened before the Schism, so this could potentially have been the catalyst that triggered the Betrayer Gods to separate from the Prime Deities. Maybe they were angry at the thought of sealing away an entity so powerful as Predathos? Maybe they thought it was wrong to do so? Maybe they were (rightly) worried that it could happen to them too? If this is the case, it's possible that some other God (who sided with the Prime Deities for the purpose of the war against the Primordials, but wasn't a true Prime Deity - actually being more tyrannical) took up the mantle of God of Death, Darkness, Fate and Winter... before afterwards being usurped by The Raven Queen.

I'm even beginning to wonder if, when she was a mortal, The Raven Queen was actually a sort of insurgent - plotting to overthrow the predecessor with her Ritual of Seeding... and if that is the case, maybe she had help to set it all up, from the other Prime Deities?