#Mythcarver

[biblicallyaccuratesandworm]

You know, always felt like Mythcarver was the least interesting of the Vestiges in the stream. First, Matt made it specifically for Scanlan, so it’s locked to work with Lore Bard abilities, which kinda sucks for an important magical item but it doesn’t even mesh well with Sam’s style of play anyway. Scanlan is a pure support, using his spells and bardic inspiration in combat to buff allies and debuff ennemies. He rarely used Mythcarver as an actual weapon and mostly took advantage of the Cutting Word buff.

But the fact that it was used in the show to reveal the locations of the other vestiges, instead of having Kamaljiori just tell them, is really cool. I love the idea of Mythcarver as “linked to all myths”. I’d definitely revamp it as a reskined staff that allows to use cool thematic spells like Heroism, Beacon of Hope and Legend Lore.

[tatzelwyrm]

Can I talk about the Swamp Boy for a moment? Because I love that Umbrasyl's involved in Ripley's hunt for the Vestiges because a) it keeps him more involved I the main plot and makes the confrontation between him and the party more personal, but also because b) he's kinda dorky.

Like, I understand Thordak's point, I'm on his side here (what a sentence). Umbrasyl is a dragon, why does he need a sword or a bow?

But... but... look at him!

When he first gains Mythcarver, being a quadruped, he holds it with his tail like he thinks he's a Dark Souls boss!

It's adorable!

Next time we see him the sword is strapped to his forelegs with a chain?

That can't be comfortable. Also, he sure didn't put that there himself. Ripley, was that the best you could for him? Like, I know she doesn't actually care, but this is so disrespectful.

Also I appreciate Mythcarver's efforts to grow a few feet for Swampy after shrinking down for Scanlan, but Umbrasyl is still a dragon and it's strapped to his leg. It's doing nothing!

This week, Ripley brings up how powerful he'll be with the Titanstone Knuckles, a set of gauntlets.

Gauntlets. Gauntlets?!

How is he going to wear them, Anna? He doesn't have hands!

And now I can't shake off the image of what it would have looked like if Umbrasyl had actually acquired all of the Vestiges. I'm sure he would have found ways to strap them to his body.

He would have walked up to Thardak and gone "look who's more powerful now" Just... covered in trash he can't actually use.

It would have been glorious.

[andi-o-geyser]

Okay, but when Mythcarver appeared I honest-to-god screamed its name like a teenage girl at a Harry Styles concert and like. It is. A fucking sword. A literal fucking sword. It’s not even a talking sword; I feel like I cannot stress enough that it does not have a personality. It is a normal ass enchanted sword that Scanlan will use 1 (one) time and then never again, but I apparently could not care less because it’s my blorbo now

[ankorhead]

Swordtember Day 18: Bard

[criticalpolls]

Part One will consist of Vestiges found by Vox Machina and will be judged by its Exalted state. Below is a link to each Vestiges page on Encyclopedia Exandria, if you need a refresher on it's abilities. This poll is basically asking, which of these items do you think is the best to bring into a high level battle?

Cabal's Ruin

Deathwalker's Ward

Fenthras

Mythcarver

Plate of the Dawnmartyr

Spire of Conflux

Titanstone Knuckles

Whisper

[gorgynei]

there was one shot in the trailer of scanlan with mythcarver but not sure what ep that could be

you are right!! i totally missed that the first 100 times i watched the trailer, but scanlan does have a sword in these shots, which is probably mythcarver. its when theyre beginning the attack on umbrasyl so if i had to guess its episode e11

[ahmoseinarus]

AKA Scanlan has actually unsheathed the damn thing. Was Mythcarver the only Vestige in the group to never Exalt? Or did Matt just give up and Awaken and Exalt it on each of the two occasions when Sam actually used it? One time only after Matt blatantly (and very frustrated) said “Mythcarver is humming in its scabbard at your side—it wants to be used!!!” prompting Sam to groan and reluctantly draw his Vestige of Divergence.

Oh Sam… all that stubborn “I’m a caster, not a sword user! This is useless!” Like his refusal to use Halfling Luck… he does it just to be a turd and troll his friends cuz he thinks it’s funny when they wanna strangle him…. Omg he drives me crazy, why am I smiling now, just thinking about it?! 😅. God luv ya, Sam…. You’re still an asshole, but god luv ya… CritRole just wouldn’t be CritRole without him 💕

You know what I think my favorite change that they've made in the adaption from game to screen might be?

Mythcarver getting to be useful.

[utilitycaster]

Do you think any of the other items the party has rn (ie Ashton’s hammer, Imogen’s robe) could become more relics of the red solstice? If yes, which god do you think would bless them? Vox Machina probably not, they’ve got all their vestiges already, but do you think the Mighty Nein could earn any?

I don't think this will be much of a focus, to be honest; Matt just poked fun at his Campaign 1 fetch quests. I especially don't think it will be a significant focus of the Mighty Nein as I think they and Vox Machina will only be viewpoint characters for their specific missions; a couple episodes at most. And, to be honest, one of my favorite things about the Mighty Nein is that they were never terribly focused on magic items to the ridiculous (affectionate) extent Vox Machina were. No shade to Vax but I think a lot of people did not realize that without two vestiges and an overpowered homebrew item and a bending of the rules re: smiting on thrown items, he's just a guy with 30 feet of movement who can attack twice with a dagger in melee and pump in a second level smite once he gets to the high levels.

I think it is possible with Bells Hells, but I suspect it will only really be those who sought out any kind of relationship with a god, even if it's relatively last minute. I'd love to see an exploration of Braius since I really don't think Asmodeus is fueling those paladin levels, but otherwise, Imogen and Ashton are currently the only ones with plans, so the gods in question are the Stormlord and the Arch Heart. It would be a nice touch, personally, if the Changebringer showed up and perhaps imbued the fragments of FCG with something minor, but I'd also be happy if the only relic we have is Seedling simply because again, Orym's the only one who's really been pursuing this consistently.

Just for a quick elaboration, I think one thing with the Vestiges that Matt realized is firstly, if he gives the party a list of everything, they will try to catch 'em all, which led to some episodes in C1 that, frankly, didn't have much connection to the characters and their goals (specifically the Fire Plane stuff; also while its retrieval was great, Scanlan used Mythcarver like, twice, and once was to do a two gnomes in a trenchcoat situation); and that you can end up with some really fucked party balance. I remember in Campaign 2 when people felt like everyone should get a Vestige again once it became apparent the Star Razor was one, but Fjord was a sword-focused character who put immense work into a relationship with a god; some classes and characters are just not item-based in the same way. To make D&D balanced, sometimes some characters get more toys; and also, following specific narrative paths is rewarded by the GM because it involves player dedication or risk or is just really fun and cool.*

I will also note that while time is short, not all the Vestiges of Divergence were tied to a deity. One could get a relic created by mortals; I don't, for example, know what Dancer and Imahara Joe are up to.

*at the risk of taking a pretty straightforward post and turning into an avenue of discourse, this is yet another reason why the "Raven Queen/Wildmother relationships with Vax and Orym are abusive" arguments feel in such profoundly bad faith and, quite frankly, taste, that they're hard to even engage with. It's such a deeply bleak and cynical worldview out of game to say "yeah, I think the GM is looking at an interesting player choice and is punishing them for it," even more so with a player like Liam, a person who is not precious with his characters and does not see tragedy or death in the service of a cause at the close of the story as narrative failure.

[amberantlers]

*squints*

If Umbrasyl used mythcarver to locate the armor then why did it show up as being in Ank'harel if the real one was in hell?

[jae-birde]

HOLY SHIT WE HAVE AN INTRO AND A DATE Y'ALL!

It's October 3rd, mark your goddamn calanders, we're getting season 3 y'all!

[bisexuel]

"why can't you ever just be sincere" looks into the camera so painfully

[natp20]

11 days and counting

[tiamat-zx]

I’ve just realized why it’s a good thing that Keyleth didn’t get her vestige yet.

Because Raishan would have been prepared for it.

She openly stated, “You think I’d have helped you acquire these vestiges if they’d be a threat to me?”

She pulled all their strings, made them dance as she wanted, both to get them to fracture and to use them for her own ends.

She showed no fear against the Plate of the Dawnmartyr, knowing that transferring herself into Thordak’s corpse gives her new flame breath necrotic properties that would overload and blow out the plate, thus rendering it harmless. And in the process, Pike was put out of commission, thus removing Vox Machina’s healer from the board.

Her undead body felt no pain, thus ruling out the various elemental properties of Fenthras, the sonic slashes of Mythcarver, and even the thunderous might of the Titanstone Knuckles, neutralizing anything that Vex, Scanlan, or Grog could have done.

She easily held Vax in place in spite of the Deathwalker’s Ward granting him speed and flight, and easily could have done him in.

And even if they had retrieved Cabal’s Ruin… any redirected magic would have been useless as she would have been unfazed.

She even intentionally baited Keyleth into killing her original form, knowing how vengeful she was.

She had everything calculated to be in her favor.

…except for one thing.

She didn’t anticipate Keyleth seeking out the other Ashari, or for her to unlock her earth elemental form.

Nor did she anticipate Keyleth baiting Raishan herself into reducing “herself” and her old body to ashes. Once she did that, those diseased ashes were able to be “reclaimed” back into the earth… and redistributed back to her undead form thanks to Keyleth’s earth elemental form serving as an anchor keeping them connected.

In other words, Keyleth utilized all she had learned across three seasons to outlast and ultimately outwit… or rather, dare I say, DECEIVE the Deceiver.

And now she’s nothing more than a DECEASED Deceiver. All because she woefully underestimated Keyleth’s persistence, cleverness, tenacity, and natural strength.

She called her a “child”.

She really shouldn’t have.

Because now, all of her plotting and planning to escape her curse… amounted to nothing.

And thus nature took its course and finished the job.

Hail to the fucking Tempest.

[the-french-belphegor]

Me and Pike, she could be on my shoulders and we could share one cloak. (I almost feel like it should be the other way around.) Oh, it absolutely should. To make it look like our arms can reach the ends of the cloak (…), I'm going to hold a flute and my sword. Mythcarver! You used Mythcarver to pull a Little Rascals!

I took a little break from listening to/(re)watching Vox Machina because I was working on a bunch of stuff, including fic (and I'm 10 episodes from "The Chapter Closes" and I'm not ready to see the end of the campaign 😭) and I had several drawing ideas I needed to see through. And here's one of them! With probably too bright colours because my new laptop is just Like That. I need to figure out how to tweak the colours...

Sometimes a fellow Vecna cultist is actually two gnomes in a trenchcoat cloak and a sword and flute to hold up the sleeves. Nothing to see, move along!

[aspiringwarriorlibrarian]

Umbrasyl: *flies off with Mythcarver*

Raven Queen: See, this is why I superglued the Deathwalker’s Ward on you.

[bananathebookworm]

TLOVM S3 Eps 4-6 Ramblings

Ep. 4

Ashley is just... so good at what she does...

Hell is disgusting. I love it.

I know splitting the party is almost always a bad idea in D&D, but I really like how they've done it in this series. It helps to get through so many important plot points. (And also makes it easier on the animators to have less characters involved in each scene.)

The concentration check fail to drop their disguises is a nice touch

I like that we get more about the NPCs stories simply because they introduced things like EXU later. They expanded on lore that didn't exist when this campaign was originally played and it's really cool to see. I'm only disappointed we didn't get to see Senokir.

Loving this card game between Pike and Zerxus.

I really want Bell's Hells to go to the Hells and talk to Zerxus. I mostly just want Luis back at the table. Let him take over like Abu did.

Also the Aabria, Brennan, and Matt in the stained glass pictures while Zerxus is retelling of his friends during the Calamity is phenomenal.

"Do you want your family here?" Damn Pike. Get him.

"We all have blindspots." I refuse to believe that wasn't a deliberate reference to Ashley's show. Especially after Scanlan's reference to Phoenix Wright a few episodes ago.

I need a mini-series of Zerxus life in Hell please.

Ep. 5

Kima and Allura being badass is always a plus. I want a mini-series of their adventuring days.

I wish they had included Scanlan slaying the pit fiend with Mythcarver. It was one of the only times Scanlan used his sword and we got one hell of a cutting words song from it. And also no one but Keyleth saw his victory which would've added to the "Scanlan is not appreciated enough" story.

"Let's get weird." I love that they throw in the various player phrases too. Not just the one-liners from characters, but the actual quirks of the players at the table that span all characters.

Kaiju battle! The only thing missing is Pike's Divine Intervention punching Vorugal out of the sky.

The Magnificent Mansion baby!

Ep. 6

Chateau Shorthalt! Love it.

Okay, but the cannonball contest is one of my favourite downtime moments. I know it was probably passed over for time, but I'd love to see it animated.

Oh god, the bath scene. I knew they wouldn't pass it over just because of how everyone reacted to that moment, but I wasn't sure how they were going to do it. Welp. Here we are. Fucking hilarious as always.

I love these moments of character bonding so much. I know we can't have as many of them in the series as in the game, but it's good that they include at least a few.

Oh this scry is rough... Scanlan is not well.

Well shit. I didn't think he'd leave at that moment. Though I do like that Pike both knows and encourages it because Ashley wasn't there for this whole thing. Sam said that if she'd been there Pike would've been the only one that could've convinced him to stay. I'm really curious if we're still going to get the "What is my mother's name?" breakdown.

Are Kash and Zahra going to return? I know they were there for at least part of this lead up to Thordak.

I really love how these different battles are choreographed. I love that they can combo and support each other's abilities now that initiative order doesn't need to be tracked.

General

I'm really enjoying this season so far. So many important character things are happening both independently and as a group.

I don't necessarily love the pacing, but I also understand that condensing a 500 hour campaign into seasons that are about 4.5 hours long total is a fucking behemoth of a task. Like even if we go two more seasons, that's only 20-25 hours total. So much has to be cut and reworked to make a coherent story.