#Tomb Takers

[realistically-rachel]

my favorite part of the night?

essek laughing when orym finds the tomb takers bodies and half of the table finally figuring it out as well

[arthurn9]

Oh hey, the corpses of the Tomb Takers! As featured in our #10 pick for Best HDYWTDTs from C2!

when you have a moment go check it out :3

[manamuses]

and on the topic of returning to find places and rare other muses to rp with. i am a lucien rper and my dream is to one day meet tomb taker rpers understanding how rare this likely is but i'm out here... so looking for any discord/forum/groups in general where they maybe exist in but i'd also return to tumblr rp for this one too. i'd consider writing cree or jurrell too, maybe one of the others if that doesn't work out since i've never written for either. lucien (and molly) are my main muses though. i don't have a lucien doc already written to provide writing examples or anything and this is an old blog but... i do love him a lot. i did write this drabble recently? (normally only second person in drabbles but it is rly fun) (it was mfrp based thus the derail/new info at the end)

[aspiringsophrosyne]

Critical Role’s fights cannot be as long in animation as they are in the stream. They just cannot. And even if they could, they shouldn’t, because it’d be a massive slog in that context.

However.... some battles need to feel long, even if they’re not. They need to feel tense and dangerous, like you just want them to end already. Not in a boring way, but in a suspenseful, scared for characters you love way.

The final battle of campaign 2 is an obvious pick. But there are others in that campaign that come to mind besides that one.

Let's talk about one of them.

(Spoilers for Campaign 2, specifically the last arc, below.)

More than almost any other fight in Campaign 2, we need the one between the Nein and the Tomb Takers from episode 123 to feel long.

And there’s something we can do to get us there. We can make the fight feel longer without actually making it longer if we inter-cut the fight with other previous scenes.

In episode 121, while traveling with the Takers, the Nein takes watch. Jester with Yasha, and then Fjord with Beau. During these shifts, Jester and Fjord reveal their kiss, and Yasha and Beau reveal their upcoming date. Everyone is excited by these developments.

I say, don’t show the romance talks when they are supposed to happen in the timeline. Skip them. Then, during the fight, flash back to them.

Like so:

Beau slams down off the back of a giant eagle into the snow among the Tomb Takers, popping several of them in the face one after the other. We cut away to:

Beau: No, on that note, I kind of — We were in, like — We just walked through a creepy forest and we were, like, a mile beneath the earth and I kind of asked Yasha on a date. Fjord: You did what?! Beau: I know. Fjord: You asked her out on a date? Beau: Yeah, yeah. Fjord: What’d she say?

We cut back. Lucien stalks up to her while she’s still swinging and unawares. When she turns, he puts his hand to her throat. His eye tattoos glow. Her head rocks back, but not out of his grip. Blood gathers in the corners of her eyes like tears.

Beau: She said yes. She said yes. That she was— Fjord: Shit!

As blood pours down out of Beau’s eyes, out of her nose, as she gags up a thick trickle of blood from her lips, as Lucien’s grin widens in sadistic satisfaction, we don’t cut away. Instead, this audio plays over him Rending her Mind.

Beau: She was, like, really excited. She was like, “I’m happy about this because, like —" I don’t know whether it’s — I just want a fresh start with Yasha because we’ve been through so much.

[...]

Beau: So it just felt like maybe, maybe a date.

She sucks in a desperate, blood choked breath.

Caleb and Cad crawl backward through the snow, frantic and trying to get their magic to work. Yasha swoops down towards Beau in her eagle form. Just before she gets close enough to make the grab, we cut away:

Jester: But did you give her the poem? Yasha: Well, I was working on it and then I just sort of ended up writing her a letter. I still have a poem, but I just ended up writing her a letter. It felt weird and it felt like really I wasn’t ready yet. So I just wrote her a note and yeah, and then she asked me out on a date, yeah.

Yasha makes the grab, Beau’s free.

Later, when Fjord’s on the opposite side of the battle field from everyone else, he brings his blade down on Lucien’s back. It's blocked without him even turning around. As he does turn and the two lock blades, Fjord’s eyes travel to the rest of the group and we see-

Fjord: Hey, I meant to tell you, I-- I told Jester how I-- how I... Beau: You did? Sorry, Caduceus. Caduceus: (snores) Beau: You did? Fjord: Yeah, on the-- real, yeah. Beau: How’d it go? Fjord: It went okay. I was pretty nervous. Beau: Yeah? What do you mean okay, though? What’s okay? Fjord: No, it was good. I-- uh. We kissed. Beau: (gasping) Sorry, Caduceus. Sorry.

He’s struck, he teleports near Zoren. He’s closer to the rest than he was, but he’s not there yet.

....And I mean, I think you get the idea at this point. You'd maybe want to pace it out slower or a little differently, but this is just to give you an idea of what you could do.

What also could be cool is intercutting this fight or later ones with scenes where the Nein talk about the city; what’s coming to Exandria if they die in Eiselcross without stopping the Tomb Takers. Remind the audience what’s at stake on a macro level (the city coming to swallow the world) and a micro level (the Nein have started more intimate relationships and might not get the chance to experience them) to keep tension high.

This is just one example, but you could use it for multiple important fights. Other good candidates include both Iron Shepherd fights, the King’s Cage fight, the Cathedral Fight and one or both fights against the Sea Spawn that come for the orb.

Sometimes you really don’t need a lot of fancy effects or animation. Sometimes just some creative storyboarding and/or editing can elevate a story in a way you wouldn’t expect.

[isa-grapes]

the fact that essek isn’t explicitly evil anymore, but remains deeply bitchy is so funny to me.

[argonianfeather]

also been playing a necromancer build as moonlights hairless khajiit meemaw, Tomb-Taker.

[wayhaughtn7]

I’ve finally reached the part of The Nine Eyes of Lucien where the Tomb Takers meet up with the Mighty Nein and boy is it fantastic having it confirmed that Molly was actually still in there when the Nein were trying to reach Molly because their attempts to pull Molly to the forefront of Lucien is one of my favorite things of the Aeor arc. The book is also making me realize that the Nein were lucky af that Beau wasn’t killed in The Cathedral because they would have lost Yasha as well and imo the book makes it seem that it’s Molly’s love for Yasha that actually makes Lucien not attempt to kill them until the Nein chased the Tomb Takers down after they stole the Nein’s Bag of Holding. The way the Molly part of Lucien connects his memories of Yasha with Lucien’s memories of Brevyn is perfection, tall buff ladies seem to be their weakness.

Also, the audiobook made me cry the moment Taliesin’s Molly voice became a voice in Lucien’s head which was an experience as I was driving to work when I heard it for the first time.

[playerkingsley]

truly, with this interaction, Beau & Caleb have experienced the gamut of weirdest blood hunters imaginable

[carlyrossart]

You don’t dream of her anymore

[dent-de-leon]

Every day I hope we'll be fortunate enough for Molly to stick around longer in the animated nein, that Taliesin--who said his favorite part of TLOVM is throwing in new twists to surprise fans of the stream--will get the chance to keep Molly longer and explore some of the backstory and plot points he never got the chance to--

[sparksly-mage-of-light]

If they do a Plank King Kingsley one-shot in the future, I kinda hope it's more like the Darrington Brigade so Kingsley can make some friends outside the Nein.

[genderless-ghost]

diversity win! the halfling that picked your pocket and tried to kill you multiple times uses all pronouns!

[elliesgaymachete]

Would genuinely love to see the m9 in a future reunion battle any spellcasters that have access to Counterspell. Imagine how differently the Uk’otoa fight would have gone if someone had countered Caleb’s Shapechange or Jester’s Mass Heal? They’re a magic heavy party, really the only two without any magic are Beau and Yasha (though now it seems Yasha has a couple of inherent spells). It’s easy enough to nerf melee fighters by just putting things far away, but I would love to see how they handle some magic nerfs at such a high level

[melnathea]

Don't be my hero