#Arkhan the Cruel

[unhookedchalk48]

[essayofthoughts]

I will not explain further

(Based on @gallusrostromegalus' template from Here)

[manueltorresart]

Arkhan, the red dragonborn paladin who helped Vox Machina in their final confrontation against the big bad. He is a guest character played by Joe Manganiello on @criticalrole.

[dailymarisharay]

[tiamat-zx]

Kudos to CBR for a solid list of the Top Ten Most Powerful CR PCs.

Especially placing Beau at #9 because we all know that she's extremely hard to kill.

And Keyleth will always be #1.

[brenhotapplepies]

With Opal getting “dark” or whatever, and the latest reveal of Dorian and Dariax looking… concerned and beat up, I’m worried that the betrayer gods are gonna use this bs to their advantage. Not to mention a follower of Tiamat had the Hand of Vecna last we saw.

[myut0eve]

DnD March 2 Day 12: Arkhan

[keefechambers]

Grog Strongjaw & Arkhan the Cruel in C1E114-115 & Jocks Machina

Vex: You seem to like him a lot. Are you sure you want to kill him and not just try and get -

[hawkogurl]

Love Joe Manganiello. Love smiting people with the knowledge that Flash Thompson and Arkhan the Cruel are the same guy.

[nevertrustanoracle]

I bought Descent into Avernus yesterday for Baldur’s Gate info.

Reading through some parts today and I may have shrieked when I saw Arkhan the Cruel in it. I’d forgotten that he’s like a fully canon, recurring character for D&D now.

[ihaveatypeanditstrickstergods]

If you're thinking about Arkhan when you vote Tiamat, remember: Arkhan follows the Forgotten Realms' version of Tiamat, not the Exandrian version. He shows back up in Descent into Avernus trying to free her using the Hand of Vecna he got from Exandria.

We as a fandom talk a lot about the Prime Deities lately, and for all the god shop talk, we haven't given a whole lot of attention to the Betrayer Gods. So, here's a poll for funsies. Remember, that this is about these gods as depicted in Exandrian lore specifically.

No 'show results' option because you gotta commit to having a favorite awful child.

[otterlyart]

Anyone one else get the vibe that Zerxus was introduced to later fill Arkhan the Cruel's role in the Vecna Arc? Just me?

[burr-ell]

Hey, I find your takes on the current cr god discourse really interesting. Did you have anymore where that comes from?

Mostly that I'm tired of the smugness of certain fans. Even the people who aren't immediately telling Orym to get over his dead husband already have a tone of like, "well of course the poor dear can't look at it objectively, but let's not worry; it'll be so hard for him, but he'll see things our way soon enough and hate the gods too".

(And seriously, no one has any examples of why Pelor needs to be "humbled" in a way the other gods don't. What'd he do, other than not suck off your blorbo?)

On a more serious gripe: as others have said, no one who brings up the "b-but the gods ARE colonizers!" rhetoric has any kind of real solution to it. Do Kima, Vex, Scanlan, Pike, Wilhand, Fjord, Caduceus, FCG, and Deanna all need to be brought to court for aiding and abetting "colonizers"? The Ashari are the legacy of the Gau Drashari, who were tasked with keeping out the Primordials, and the guarding of the elemental rifts serves a similar function; are Keyleth, Korrin, Cerkonos, and Orym going to atone for the druids also perpetuating "colonialism"? Do we need to retroactively condemn the Ring of Brass, seeing as how they actually destroyed two Primordials in an effort to keep them from returning to the world?

What does justice look like here, exactly? Returning Exandria to the Primordials and elementals by unleashing Predathos on the gods? Except Predathos wants to eat Primordials too, so that'll end in a hurry, and if this is accomplished without Predathos, the Primordials destroy all the mortals like they've wanted to for eons and Critical Role ends with all our favorite characters dead and the company itself barely viable anymore. Get rid of the gods without returning the world to the Primordials? Well, now not only are you still perpetuating "colonialism", you've also got thousands if not millions of people (see above and et cetera) who will lose connections to beings that they love that helped them and brought them spiritual fulfillment—and there will be quite a few people serving gods who aren't nearly as good-natured as the Dawnfather or the Platinum Dragon who aren't going to be pleased at their passing and are absolutely going to find someone to take it out on. (Arkhan "stole the hand of Vecna" the Cruel was a pretty loyal servant of Tiamat, after all.) You're also losing access to quite a bit of medical care, since clerics are the ones who do most of that work, and while druids and bards could fill some of the gaps, I don't think we're exactly short on real-life examples of what happens when a society overextends its healthcare capacity. What's anyone in this scenario supposed to do?

Like, if the metaphor isn't actionable, it's a stupid fuckin' metaphor.

[locuas642]

In Baldur's Gate 3, an often mention "incident" that happened shortly before the events of the game is "Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus"

In this adventure, the adventuring party is tasked with actually solving the disappearance of Elturel, which eventually leads them to travel the first fllor of the Nine Hells, known as Avernus (duh), and confronting the leader of Avernus, the archdevil Zariel, pictured above.

However, one of the ways in which one can rescue the city of Elturel is by making a deal with the Dragon Goddess Tiamat

She is both prisoner and guest of Hell and a wildcard who is not Zariel's ally nor under her command and, like all evil gods, has her own little agenda.

And one of Tiamat's servants the player can encounter is the first appearence in official DND material of the Paladin Arkhan The Cruel

whom critters MIGHT recognize as the same Arkhan who had appeared earlier as joining forces with Vox Machina at the end of the first campaign of Critical Role in the battle against Vecna (Arkhan had been introduced even earlier than that in Force Grey)

and Arkhan as introduced in Descent into Avernus heavily implies the events of Vox Machina are canon to him.

thus making a connection between Baldur's Gate 3 and Critical Role through official DnD material

[wvrlock]

BD/SM test under the cut

// fallahan's switchness is so much fun to write because he can be so versatile but you MUST be paying him absolute attention. That's his only requirement.

[real-british-empire]

Hello! Requesting an info dump.

Can you give me a general overview of the setting for age of sigmaur?

Ok, so I’m not the most well versed in this but I’ll try.

We need to start in the old world aka the warhammer fantasy.

So you have the skaven who are evil rats who worship the great horned rat and use warp stone for almost everything from machines to making flesh abominations.

One day they decide to take over the world because they hate everyone (and probably for other reasons), and this is called vermintide.

During vermintide they blow up the moon and everything goes to shit and the world ends.

After all this the realms sort of reform I guess (I don’t know anything about the forming on the realms) but some powerful figures survive the old world and go on to shape the world I think (these include Sigmar and Nagash who became gods as well as arkhan the black who went on to be one of nagash’s mortarchs)

From here the realms were formed with their different realmstones, of which there are:

Shysh, realm of death with its gravesand.

Azyr, realm of heavens with its celestium

Hysh, realm of light with its aetherstone

Ulgu, realm of shadows with its falsestone

Ghur, realm of beasts with its amberstone

Aqshy, realm of fire with its emberstone

Chamon, realm of metal with its chamonite

Ghyran, realm of life with its cyclestone

Connecting all of these are realmgates which are scattered across the lands and connect from one realm to another. There are some special realmgates, known as all-gates, to a place called the eightpoints, which has its own realmstone called varanite.

There is also the realms of chaos which I don’t understand too much which has warpstone.

Each realm has unique properties and things such as the nadir of Shysh (result of Nagash fucking around and finding out) and some interact with others.

There’s also the aetheric void which I am only aware of.

I’ll also explain the gist of all of the armies.

Stormcast externals are the poster boys of AoS (age of Sigmar) and are the personal enforcers of Sigmars will, made from the souls of fallen champions and lightning.

Cities of Sigmar is just the generic boring people.

Lumineth are stupid fucking high aelves.

Idoneth deepkin are an interesting lot though. Tormented by slaanesh, they hid in the oceans and stole souls from beneath nagash (god of death)‘s nose to keep themselves alive until the skaven drained all the water from where they were hiding and Nagash found out where all those souls went (he was not happy)

Syvaneth are wood aelves.

Seraphon are an ancient race of lizardfolk and frog dudes who are theorised to have created the realmgates but are a fraction of their former glory.

Fyreslayers are fire dwarves

Kharadon overlords are dwarves who discovered a very floaty gas and are now airborne.

Daughters of Khaine are murder aelves and medusae.

These are all in one big alliance and are the order factions.

Then there’s the death factions which are very fun.

Soulblight gravelords are generic vampires and also general undead with zombies and skeletons. ( most boring one). They also have the mortarchs of night and blood.

The flesheater courts are a group of nobles led by Ushoran who loves Nagash and caused his noble followers and their knight and serfs to go become delusional and view the world as though they are being very good people while devouring a family of 4. Many kill themselves if they are freed from their curse of delusion. Ushoran is the mortarch of delusion.

Then there’s the nighthaunt who are an army of ghosts with cruel punishments, such as blinded assassins who will never know who they kill, or the souls of the drowned, stuck in their last moments of flailing forever as they madly swing their swords. They are led by Lady Olynder, mortarch of grief.

Finally for death, the ossiarch bonereapers (my army). Using sorceries to shape bones and the ideal parts of souls (eg, a knights swordsmanship) trapped in gems made of Grave sand from their home realm of Shysh Nagash forged the ossiarch legions. During the peacetime when the pantheon of gods (Sigmar, Nagash, Khaine and others) were all chill, Nagash built cities for his allies, but underneath were vaults containing sealed legions of the ossiarchs to be deployed should they turn on Nagash. Their weapons are forged from nadirite, a material found around the Nadir that Nagash made on accident while trying to do something, I forgot what exactly but that also created endless spells and some other shit, anyways, nadirite can sap the soul of its victims as it strikes making it a very powerful weapon. Anyways, Sigmar was a bitch and turned on Nagash and started stealing his souls for his stormcast bitches so Nagash unleashed the ossiarchs, and their leaders, Arkhan the black, mortarch of sacrament, and katakros, mortarch of the necropolis. Katakros served Nagash in life and his soul continued after death. His will was so powerful, Sigmar had to seal him in a vault to keep him from wreaking havoc with his amazing skill and intellect (yes I’m hyping him up he’s cool), and he was then saved by Lady Olynder. He’s considered a demigod of war tho he’s cool af. Anyways, Nagash unleashed his prized creations upon the world who quickly started expanding due to coming up from within cities, however not everyone got the wake-up call so sometimes the legions have to be freed. Anyways, they posses tactics that are unusual for the dead, such as letting settler groups build a settlement in their territory before using it as essentially a bone farm and forcing a tithe upon all occupied settlements and bordering regions. These are used to make more and more ossiarchs. Also, the bone they’re made from are very important, as during the age of beasts (previous period of time) the beasts of Ghur were powered up by realmstone in their bones which caused some legions to go mad and become violent and dangerous due to their more durable bones, but the ivory host (legion) figured out how to stop it. That’s all for the ossiarchs, they’re my favorite c:

Next we have the destruction armies who all worship an aspect of Gorkamorka (sometimes 2 separate entities of Gork and Mork which may be familiar for 40K fans).

The Gloomspite gitz worship the Bad Moon, a moon of which it is said gorkamorka took a bite out of (stories vary due to goblin shit) which retains some of its power. It’s presence empowers the gitz to a fiendish frenzy and causes them to go into a git WAAAAAAGGGHHHHHH (a form of war waged by gitz, orks and orruks where they’re whipped up into a frenzy) where instead of becomeing violent maniacs they begin spiteful tricks and ploys. There’s also the spider fangs and spider god but I don’t know too much about that. They’re also always tripping their minds out on shrooms, and don’t ask what the loonking’a staff does, trust me, it’s fucked up.

Then there’s the orruk warclans. I don’t know them well.

Then there’s the ogor mawtribes which you may recognise from old world/fantasy. They worship the great maw which I can’t remember the origin but is thought to be Gorkamorka related. They show support by eating as much as possible and getting fat as well as making sacrifices of food to the great maw. The ogors hunger makes them violent and brutish but also considerably fast. Ask my friend @ogor-tyrant if you want to know more.

Then there’s the sons of Behemat. I don’t know anything about them either aside from that they’re mercenaries and also giants.

Finally, we have chaos. I’ll only really cover skaven because the others are already explained enough but I’ll give a brief overview. Even then I don’t know much about skaven.

Blades of Khorne are worshippers of Khorne, the god of blood, war and skulls. They REALLY hate sorcery. Their number is 8

Disciples of Tzeench, worship Tzeench, god of trickery and magic and definitely the smartest of the gods who totally knew what they were doing when they chucked one of their best servants into a giant magic hole and totally won’t turn you into a chaos spawn for funsies. They REALLY love sorceries. Their number is 9

Maggotkin of nurgle, worship nurgle, god of plagues and disease, very chill guys actually (except festus, stay away from festus). Their magic is magical plagues. Their number is 7

Hedonites of slaanesh, worship Slaanesh, horiest god and god of excess. I really fucking hate Slaanesh, fucking bitch. Not even gonna say the number cuz I fucking hate them so much (/silly)

Skaven, worshipers of the great horned rats. They snort their realmstone (warpstone) and are the most advanced race aside from the dwarves using warpstone for everything. They have their own unique way of speak-talk (example) and are very silly guys whose abilities regularly involve killing themselves for more buffs. Best number of any chaos god with 13 (chaos god’s numbers are used for things like aura effects as well as other silly things like lore so bigger number is better but it’s like how 666 is the devils number or something I’m not religious). They’re split into clans, the general masterclan (basic and generic), clan Eshin which is sneaky assassins, clan skyre who make the mechanical machinery, clan moldur who makes the flesh abominations, clan verminus who are the war wagers and very violent and clan pestilens who like to be nasty and spread plagues (good friends of nurgle).

There’s also slaves to darkness. They’re the neutral chaos faction. No number because they’re neutral.

Beast men are going to cease to exist and I don’t know anything about them but rip to the beast men players

That’s all I can really remember, I may have misremembered in some areas and I’m not the most well versed in the lore of factions my friends don’t play. Thanks for the opportunity to infodump!!!

If anyone else reading this has any corrections feel free to mention them and I’ll rectify them.