#Tal’Dorei Campaign Setting Reborn

[luckthebard]

Heads up, the Tal’Dorei Campaign Setting Reborn is now available on DnD Beyond, if that’s of interest to anyone who uses it for their campaign!

[ilikefandom]

Our Sunshine Weeps in the Evening

(I wrote this inspired by my Tal’Dorei Campaign (All of us are huge fans of Critical Role), where, inspired by the love story of the Briarwoods, my Warlock accidentally made a pact with them (yes both of them) to work with the tools of Vecna, keeping him alive, in exchange for magic, up until the day she finds somebody who will love her in the way she deserves, 4 Nat 20s in a row Charisma checks (was online on Roll20) and 3 DC 22 Wis Saving throw successes, means that they are genuinely falling in love with my character, I was surprised, my DM was surprised. I hope Matt Mercer doesn’t hate me for what Calliope has done. Yes this is HEAVY Goth/pastel princess energy because it is.)

Our Sunshine Weeps in the Evening - A Love Letter From a Patron to a Warlock

Our Sunshine weeps in the evening,

As the day it turns into night

Her grace and her magic combining

As tears fall quick out of sight

Our Sunshine weeps in the evening

Alone in a tavern so fair

She has sapphire eyes and wears no disguise

As brine drips into her hair

Our Sunshine weeps in the evening

Of a love she has never had

No family nor friends, her pain never ends

No wonder our Sunshine is sad

Our Sunshine weeps in the evening

And there is not much we can do

We sit here in vain on a different plane

And her woe seeps into us too

Our Sunshine weeps in the evening

As she thinks of her desperate day

We wish her hands were in ours, her light it outpours

World….

Don’t take our Sunshine away

[sidleyparkhermit]

Okay. Okay. Okay.

[ailustrarte]

Piece I painted to celebrate both the release of Tal’Dorei Campaign Setting Reborn and the premiere of The Legend of Vox Machina earlier this year.

[exandriacityshowdown]

Final Round

Nicodranas, Wildemount: Nicodranas is a bustling port city on the Menagerie Coast. It is the hometown of The Mighty Nein's Jester Lavorre, and the party visited multiple times. C2 NPC Yussa Erennis lives here.

image is official art by adragonswinging, from explorer's guide to wildemount

Zephrah, Tal'Dorei: Zephrah is the home of the Air Ashari. It is situated in western Tal’Dorei. It is the hometown of Keyleth of Vox Machina, and Orym of Bells Hells. Both parties have spent time there during their adventures.

image from tal'dorei campaign setting reborn / link

Rosohna, Wildemount: Rosohna is the capital of the Kryn Dynasty in Xhorhas. Due in part to the sunlight sensitivity of its majority-drow population, the city’s mages maintain a blanket of eternal night in the sky above the city. This magical effect is seen as a hallmark of the Kryn Dynasty, especially as it is also cast at contentious points along the Dwendalian border to reduce the disadvantage to drow soldiers fighting during the day. Rosohna is built on the ruins of the calamity-era city Ghor Dranas, the capital of the betrayer gods’ alliance during this conflict. Sometimes Rosohna is still erroneously called Ghor Dranas, especially by political opponents of the Dynasty. Rosohna is the centre of the Dynasty’s secret religion worshiping the Luxon.

image from the postcard merch by pretty useful co

[copperhawkthoughts]

Dressed to the Neins - Keyleth

I had an entire post written out and then this hellsite ate the draft, so now we get to experience the Cole’s Notes version together:

I mostly don’t work with specific reference images in mind, it’s a more vibes-based process than that - by which I mean I draw from my own understanding of the character that is formed as an amalgamation of canon and non-canon sources - offical art, other fan works, personality, backstory, significant moments in canon, etc.

This project is pretty heavily influenced by the Keyleth portrait by Jonah Baumann from the Tal’Dorei Campaign Setting Reborn, though - particularly the use of turquoise as the background colour, and the leaf shades, especially the oranges.

Fun fact: the turquoise and the reddish orange yarns were surprisingly hard to find!

Also I like the way the black shows in the corners, with the stitches fanned out a little like the ‘finger’ feathers ravens have, you know?

[rightpastnowhere]

Perc’ahlia Week Countdown - Day Four!

I also feel like I should apologize for how late every day these go up, whoops. Late night Tumblr gang how we feeling??

Day Four — Shoot / Reborn

This moodboard topped day 3 with difficulty, but the @percahliaweek mod team helped me out!! They also helped me with these:

Shoot

Sharpshooting contest, long-distance combat banter, Percy making arrows for Vex

“Shooting their shot” trying to ask the other out on a date, modern AU photoshoot, Cupid’s arrows (AU or concept)

Stargazing/shooting stars, “shoot” to replace swearing around the kids, darts or slingshots

Campaign 1 episode 68

Reborn

Reincarnation AU, time loop AU, dead family lives/comes back to life AU

Reincarnate (the spell), aasimar or divinity AUs, came back wrong AUs, vampire/other undead AUs

Moments of great change in their lives, resurrection rituals, their kids being named for dead relatives

Modern AU - waking up from a coma situations, being revived in video games

Bonus!! Drawing inspiration from things from the Tal’dorei Reborn campaign setting guide :)

Halfway through the week countdown!! And I’m still a day behind, whoopsie. That doesn’t mean that I’m not super excited though!! Day 4 of Perc’ahlia week is Wednesday, September 27th!!

Remember, you can tag any posts or discussion about Perc’ahlia week, even before the content gets posted, with #percahliaweek !! We love to see that people are getting excited!!!

[occidentalavian]

So fun fact in the LoVM watch party, Matt estimated that 75,000 people died in the Conclave’s attack on Emon. 

Emon’s population given in the original Tal’Dorei Campaign Setting book, set a year after the Conclave arc, is 287,550. So it’s pop. pre-attack was around 362,550.

In Tal’Dorei Reborn, 24 years later, it’s pop. went back up to 365,026. So it took the city that long to recover.

[breathalyzerfail]

PREVIOUSLY ON CRITICAL ROLE…

LOLTH: Mmm… I feel them here. The Children of Malice…

…

MORRIGHAN: (I look out at the mountains and just sit quietly for a moment.)

…

DORIAN: Opal’s getting a little dark. Little busy at the moment.

…

ORYM: Listen, what’s happening over here is pretty bad. Get the group. Go underground. Stay there. Miss you.

Sources: Tal’dorei Campaign Setting Reborn map by Andy Law; Ruhn-Shak, TCSR p. 111.

(Please, please. It has nearly been a year since EXU: Kymal so I need a follow-up bad.)

[thedragonagelesbian]

Adelaide character sheet, built using MorePurpleMoreBetter’s interactive 5e character sheet. Fun additional notes

Adelaide’s metamagic options are transmuted spell (to switch spells to lighting/thunder & combo with channel divinity & get max damage) and subtle spell (for enchantment magic fuckery)

She only gets to prep two cleric spells; in keeping with her having “this might sting”, I prepped healing word, and in keeping with all the religious trauma (and not wanting a spell that relies on her spell save or spell attack), I prepped protection from evil & good

I took variant human and grabbed the Cruel feat from the Tal’Dorei Campaign Setting Reborn. It seemed like the closest I was going to get mechanically to her callousness temptation

[thessalian]

Thess vs Open Gaming Licence

So, after some reading around and some thinking, I’m doing the thing I always do when Worrying Thing is on the horizon - doing the Jenga Tower of Logic thing. Yes, this is about WotC’s OGL 1.1. I’m approaching it from a variety of levels because yeah, it worries the fuck out of me for a variety of reasons. So I’m going to start with “why it’s entirely likely that the leaks are true”, go on to “what would probably happen if the leaks are true”, and then go on to “what can be done about it”. That way at least it’s not looming, unnameable dread. I like to comprehend my horrors, thank you.

So. Why we think this is actually true. One simple reason, honestly: the fact that Wizards of the Coast isn’t saying shit. Given the sheer amount of furore going on, given that they’ve actually received letters from lawyers requesting (well, actually demanding) clarification, given that it’s their professional reputation on the line? If this was not in any way true, they would have said something by now. All we’re left with in terms of comment from WotC (and, frankly, Hasbro) is “We need to monetise D&D as much as possible!” Which ... you know, given that OGL 1.1 as leaked lets them grab royalties, steal content and use it as their own with no say from the creators, and outright change their own document in whatever fashion they see fit as long as they give 30 days notice, after the affected parties have already signed it ... that’s just giving them license to print money off the backs of others. Even with the amount of franchising they could be doing, they seem to want to monetise the players themselves. It doesn’t hurt that Kickstarter have apparently confirmed that they’ve spoken to Hasbro about royalties, either, because the leaked document states that Kickstarter-funded creations don’t have to pay as much in royalties.

What will probably happen if the links are true is ... another complicated one, given the community as a whole. This one needs bullet points.

Livestreamers: So okay, this is where it gets complicated, and Critical Role is kind of the perfect example. Not because it’s better than the others in its field; because of Green Ronin and Darrington Press, respectively. Look, way back before the Kickstarter for TLoVM, Critical Role produced the Tal’Dorei Campaign Setting, published by Green Ronin. That didn’t actually stay on sale very long, though you might be able to find the PDF floating around somewhere. Thing is, around that time, Critical Role was also working on Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount, through Wizards of the Coast. I would guess that part of the reason for halting things with Green Ronin was having to make sure that anything in the Green Ronin book wouldn’t end up copyright WotC. Which makes sense. Thing is, then Critical Role started Darrington Press, their own publication house. That allowed them to publish Tal’Dorei Reborn, the now more-or-less official guide to Tal’Dorei. Now, you cannot tell me that WotC didn’t seethe at that. They got Wildemount, but Critical Role LLC got Tal’Dorei, which would soon be heavily advertised via The Legend of Vox Machina, and I would bet someone felt short-changed. Given that the leaked document make OGL 1.0 obsolete (if that’s legally possible; more on that later), the bit about taking what someone else made and using it as they see fit could mean that everything in Tal’Dorei Reborn becomes WotC property. That’s not even talking about every other stream out there possibly being the source of all manner of new content where the creators won’t see a penny of the profits and have no legal recourse about it, whether they themselves are making money and having to pay royalties or not. I mean, if you want a campaign guide to whatever world Dimension 20 or Adventure Time or whatever are playing, I’d assume most people want the money for it going to the people who made it, but Wizards and Hasbro in concert apparently just say ... no.

Dungeon Masters’ Guild: DMG is a great source for third-party content. I’ve put up a couple of monster manuals there myself, mostly using the proceeds to buy more third-party content. By the same rules as above, anyone who risks publishing on the DMG, whether or not they’re making enough per year to hit the threshold for royalties, could have their creations stolen by WotC.

Pathfinder: I mean, a lot of other games as well, but Pathfinder’s the big one. It’s what one might call The Competition insofar as this kind of thing is concerned, and where Critical Role technically began. It’s based on 5e, sort of (or at least 2.0 is; I admit I haven’t followed much), but apparently it’s a bit crunchier in terms of numbers - part of why CR swapped to 5e when they started streaming was wanting things to flow with a little less crunch that might alienate people watching for story. Thing is, Pathfinder started on the original OGL. See above re: OGL 1.1's retroactivity and rescinding all permissions granted in OGL 1.0 - Paizo would have to pay royalties, risk having their content stolen, and all of it subject to whatever change WotC wants to make on only 30 days’ notice. Not even sure what happens to the video games at that point. Which brings us to the “a lot of other games as well” thing. I’m flashing to Obsidian’s Pillars of Eternity series, and Solasta: Crown of the Magister. They’re all based on 5e rules, thus OGL 1.0. They’re possibly going to end up with the same problem.

Merchandise: This one’s a real grey area, but it’s something that needs to be considered - it’s not just the text and rule set that’s at stake here. As a for-example: the webcomic Questionable Content has among its merchandising a Tsundere Beholder T-shirt. In fact, a lot of people who sell on Etsy and Redbubble and things like that have items that could, if WotC wanted to push it, fall under the rules set out in OGL 1.1. See, I’m not so much worried about royalties in those cases, because that would be a seriously complicated issue. I’m worried about eventual C&D takedown notices and theft of the images for their own use. Given the whole “AI art programmes are taking art from creators and using it for their own purposes with neither permission nor commission fee” thing, this wouldn’t be entirely unheard of. I mean, keep in mind that I also started my time in fandom during the Foxing Era, when websites were getting takedown notices left and right and fanfic authors were holding up Acuff vs Rose Music like a fucking riot shield, so I’ve been in the trenches of a ‘content creator vs grasping corporate body’ war before. OGL 1.1 may only deal with the text and rule set right now, but again, if the leaks are true, they’ve written a clause that lets them change the text however they want with only 30 days of notice. That’s not a long time when you’re having to revamp your entire small business model.

I think that covers everything, and what it basically says is “If you’re smaller than Hasbro, you’re fucked”.

So what can we do about it? I mean, not much, not ourselves, but we can do at least one thing, which will hopefully pave the way for others - those with more resources - to do more.

TALK ABOUT IT: I’ve seen a lot of people saying, “Well, let’s just wait and see what happens; it might not be that bad and it might not be true anyway! Stop catastrophising everything!” I mean, I personally like flagging up when there might be an actual catastrophe coming for smaller content creators, but I’m just quirky that way. While it’s true that assuming it’s true and getting depressed about it isn’t healthy, people do need to talk about it so that it stays in the public eye. Wizards of the Coast and its parent company Hasbro need to know that we are not happy about this; that we are looking at this and flagging up the parts where it’s unfair, restrictive, and in some cases possibly illegal. No one makes a U-turn on a shitty course of action that will make them money unless given compelling evidence that it will lose them more money. And yes, there are other systems, but not everyone is good with transferring to a whole new system - not out of laziness but out of neurodivergence. So saying, “Just move to another system! It’s about time D&D got out of the limelight anyway!” is kind of ableist. Plus a lot of people saying that tend to say, “Go for Pathfinder instead!” and ... well, see above. You want to save Pathfinder? TALK ABOUT IT.

Paizo, Critical Role LLC, Etc: No, none of these companies, or any of the smaller content creators out there, could take Hasbro in a legal fight. However, if they distanced themselves from the D&D rule set entirely ... it would hurt them, yes, particularly the two companies mentioned who have made their name on it. But they’re creative people and they could probably do it. People would follow suit. This is a perfect set-up for the classic “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush” situation; WotC has its bird in the hand at present (selling us sourcebooks and franchise-specific stuff and getting so much free advertising from the RP community), but it’s looking to grab at the two in the bush because hey, more birds! But that kind of grasping only results in the birds in the bush flying away and the bird in the hand either also flying away or being crushed by overreaching asshole. See also: Shooting Yourself In The Foot. And if that kind of thing keeps on long enough...

Amazon: Seriously, if we talk about it enough? And the third-party creator companies talk about it enough? It’s eventually going to get noticed by Amazon. Y’know, Amazon, which sells a lot of third-party D&D sourcebooks and would probably take a hit if those stopped being made because no one wants to provide WotC free content? Amazon, which owns Twitch and would probably take another hit if TTRPG livestreamers stopped streaming? Amazon, which currently hosts Legends of Vox Machina and probably has zero interest in paying royalties to Wizards of the Coast for it? Amazon, run by Jeff “HAS ALL THE MONEY AND IT’S STILL NOT ENOUGH” Bezos? If people talk enough about this, it’s conceivable that Amazon sends lawyers of their own. And the legal power Amazon could throw at someone makes Habro’s look like nothing. See also: Disney, because WotC has Star Wars books floating around out there and if WotC sets that standard of “You created it with our rule set and it’s now ours to use as we see fit no matter what the agreement under which you originally created it says”, theoretically that means they could publish a new one without consulting the current owners of the IP ... thus, Disney. I don’t think Disney would like that.

So basically there’s a lot that could happen at this point. There are a lot more people than we think using rule sets, concepts, and imagery that it was perfectly fine to use under the original agreement as set out by WotC. The original OGL 1.0 document allowed us to do so and lawyers are now looking at this to assess the legality of retroactively rescinding the permissions granted by that document with the new document. It honestly doesn’t look good for WotC or Hasbro legally, but Hasbro can afford a lot of laywers who are experts at finding loopholes, so ... seriously. Talk about it, keep it out there ... but people are right about not panicking or despairing. It’s not over yet, but we’ve had enough nasty surprises the last few years that even being able to prepare for the smaller, arguably less vital ones is something.

[sporadicivanvannorman]

image ID: Ivan Van Norman, mutton chops closely trimmed and curls neat, holding up a certificate reading “Best Setting: Gold 2022: Tal’Dorei Campaign Setting Reborn, Darrington Press”. 

[erinfulmerwrites]

Anyone with even a passing familiarity with contract law, IP licensing, or legal aspects of publishing can comprehend why CR has not said more than they did about the OGL debacle. If you’re an author, you should understand too.

Exandria is Matt Mercer’s baby. Essentially his life’s work. An extraordinary amount of painstaking attention to detail, thoughtful development, and stunning imagination has gone into this setting. Thousands of hours of work. The man is a worldbuilding dynamo.

And WotC owns or has rights to significant chunks of his creation. Though CR has almost certainly maintained IP rights to the Exandria setting (Tal’Dorei Reborn is published by their indie press), WotC currently holds publishing rights to The Explorer’s Guide to Wildmount as well as at least one full prewritten campaign.

As a author, getting rights back once you’re signed a publishing contract is no joke. These deals have terms in years. You can ask for them back or sue to get them back, but it’s a painful, lengthy, and expensive process. It means your book goes out of print, you often have to get all new art, and there are usually noncompete and nondisparagement clauses to contend with. I know authors who have gotten rights back and they never talk about it publicly until the severance is complete.

This affects the rest of the cast as well, by the way. They’ve spoken often about how their characters are a living part of them. This is extremely personal to them. The thought of losing that kind of creative legacy to a soulless corporation has got to be a crushing weight.

This is likely an incredibly scary and painful time for them and everyone in the company. WotC’s new OGL directly targets their livelihood. Note that taking 25% of net receipts from independent creators is an absolutely egregious royalty scheme and a blatant cash grab that could result in creators owing WotC more than they are making in profits.

I would be shocked if CR isn’t preparing for legal action on multiple fronts, but speaking as a lawyer, if you want to win in court you don’t go making statements on Twitter that could be seen as breaking existing contract terms. CR is a force in the TTPRG community but they are still a privately held small business and Hasbro is a large corporation with lots of cash on hand for litigation.

In addition, CR renewed their D&D Beyond sponsorship last year which likely muzzles them further. Even if they have severed the sponsorship deal (and there are some indications they may have) they would have likely had to sign a non-disparagement clause to do so.

With all that said, CR3 will almost certainly be the last campaign they do in D&D. In fact, I think Matt saw this coming and has been building to a canon split to a new game system, but didn’t expect this to go down until 2024 with the release of OneD&D/6e.

It’s no coincidence that they increasingly refer to the D&D 5e gods by different names (Matron of Ravens, Wild Mother, Changebringer), use tons of homebrew builds, and don’t include any copyrighted terms in the animated show! The Whispered One will never be named Vecna if they get to that arc in TLoVM.

CR3 also has few vanilla D&D monster, using terminology shifts like “katari” instead of “tabaxi,” “shade creepers” instead of “darklings,” etc. (Note I’m not 100% caught up yet, so there may be some exceptions here.) Ashton, FCG, and Chetney are all using homebrew builds. Imogen’s powers are reskinned and evolving into something that could go almost anywhere. As for Fearne and Laudna, no one fully knows wtf is up with them.

(Fearne could be a hag in disguise! Laudna clearly has a soul! Orym is the most 5e vanilla build, but fighters also have fairly un-copyrightable abilities.)

What was it Matt said as Planerider Ryn last episode? “That moves our timeline a bit…Some of the things we hoped to use to slow them down have fallen through the cracks.” And, as Ludinus:

“We are the seeds they plant, and till, and water. We struggle in the maze they shaped…return to their private gardens to be harvested and feed their power and dominance, because they told us there is no alternative. But all children outgrow their parents, and they came to fear our development, our potential…

“We’ve never needed them. They’ve always needed us.”

(That whole speech was the real statement IMO, in an ep filmed after WotC sent the new OGL contracts to creators but before the leaks.)

(And when Imogen asks, “Will it go away?” Da’leth answers, “Some of it will.”)

Anyway, I am very interested to see what happens next. And I look forward to hearing those choice words sometime in the future when certain terms expire.

This is the best response to Critical Role’s vague statement alfjskjf

[exandriacityshowdown]

Semifinals Poll 2 of 3

Rexxentrum, Wildemount: Rexxentrum is the capital of the Dwendalian Empire. It is a massive metropolis, the political centre of the Empire, an economic hub and the base of operations for the Cerberus Assembly. There is also a prominent Archive for the Cobalt Soul. Between that and the Cerberus-run Soltryce Academy, a renowned school of magic, Rexxentrum is seen as a centre of learning. Although not originally from here, the Mighty Nein’s Caleb Widogast lived here for several years. The Mighty Nein’s involvement in the war between the Empire and the Kryn Dynasty eventually brought them to Rexxentrum.

image from the postcard merch by pretty useful co

Zephrah, Tal'Dorei: Zephrah is the home of the Air Ashari. It is situated in western Tal’Dorei. It is the hometown of Keyleth of Vox Machina, and Orym of Bells Hells. Both parties have spent time there during their adventures.

image from tal'dorei campaign setting reborn / link

[luckthebard]

I’m sorry but this is an absolutely ridiculous thing to say after both The Legend of Vox Machina and The Tal’Dorei Campaign Setting Reborn have published the Exandrian gods under new names without any fuss from WotC licensing. WotC cannot trademark, for instance, the concept of a nature god. If this is consideration that ever goes into their storytelling, if their storytelling were ever this tightly tied to a business decision I will be well within my rights to find it both craven and stupid.

I think a huge problem I’m seeing in some attempts at meta with C3 is that there is a subset of viewers who do not understand the place, value, and meaning of real world religion. It breeds takes like “well throw the gods out! Who needs them! They caused characters and the world pain! Free Vax from the Raven Queen!”

I throw that last one in there because it is the most ridiculous yet frequent and is really the crux of the issue. Vax’s story is very much about faith and the importance of faith and devotion. If you place no value on that you’ll end up grossly misunderstanding the character and the nature of his tragedy.

I’m going to out myself as an atheist, but I think the issue with a lot of these takes are that they come from internet atheists who are either resentful of and hostile toward religion because of personal experiences or do not know any devout people in their lives who they respect and can empathize with. And while I am not trying to downplay the very real phenomenon of religious trauma, when healing from it it is crucial to realize that all spiritual traditions are not synonymous with the one that harmed you. I would really implore more people to explore why many good people find spiritual traditions and religion to be a source of solace, community, and meaning before writing off the idea wholesale as something only functioning as a means of power and control that people can be educated out of believing. I encourage you to branch out and here are some examples of things I’ve done to challenge my own judgement over the last ten years: read the writings of gay Catholics exploring the queerness of Jesus. Read some beautiful poetry written by a trans man who specializes in Anglican theology. Explore religious observances different from the ones you experienced and attend a Seder. Go if a coworker invites you to a celebration of Ganesh. Learn the significance of solstice celebrations because your coworker is officiating one for a Wiccan event. Break fast at sundown during Ramadan with in solidarity with your roommate.

Deciding that all fictional religion must be an allegory for a specific kind of toxic nationalistic prosperity gospel Christian cult found in America will only limit how you engage with both fiction and the real world. It took me a long time to get to this place about it and I hope I’ve put the spark of curiosity and not judgment into at least one person reading this.

[thegaminggang]