#and i mean that actually literally i have tasted poison before nd it tastes like that

[autistic-katara]

why does paracetamol taste like that when u swallow it wrong holy fuck

[vohalika]

On Long-Term Consequences

(...and selective memory, confirmation bias, Keyleth-hate, and the everlasting adoration of villains)

Yes, I am going to rant about youtube comments on critical role again. It’s what I do. Here’s your regular reminder not to talk to the Fourth Reich Nazi in the comments, please.

Anyhow, getting that out of the way, way back when, I posted a youtube comment on how I, too, adore Raishan and would have loved to see her Vegeta her way into reluctant ally and party member indefinitely, but that that just wasn’t happening, ever. For reasons entirely unrelated to Keyleths totally unfounded, not justifiable hate for her over not really killing people Keyleth had no personal connection to at all, ever, #ThanksKeyleth. How dare she object to mass murder in the second degree or whatever the English legal terminology is here. (It’s Mittelbare Täterschaft in German. I’ll stop now, this is not about law.)

That post recently sparked a discussion with someone about Raishan, and how the “smart” thing for VM to do would have been to let her do as she pleased and never bother with her again.

And, I mean, sure. Attacking her with only three people present and the entire party pretty much depleted was not a “smart” choice. Hell, Liam himself acknowledged that on several occasions.

And this isn’t even about the morality of deal breaking. I agree on that front, deal breaking is not good, and would make me as a DM consider adjusting alignments at some point.

I do, however, see no moral failure in not letting a genocidal egomaniac get away unscathed with the knowledge of how to be an even more powerful genocidal egomaniac in the future.

And taking into account only player knowledge, things that have been established in-game, down to the very moment when Raishan pulled out the probably Speak with Dead scroll, that’s what they knew.

Raishan quite literally broke the world and the barriers between planes of existence to find a cure for herself. People give Keyleth shit for blaming the decimation of the fire Ashari on Raishan when in reality, Thordak was the one who actually destroyed things, but Raishan is still to blame. She did release the mad dog, in the middle of the civilization she infiltrated to learn how to do that in the first place. 

Hell, she didn’t just do that and shrug at everything Thordak did after. She actively brokered an alliance between five chromatic dragons with the explicit goal of subjugating the centers of human civilization, killing thousands in the process.

Her goddamn introduction was her breathing poison into a panicked crowd and cackling about how she enjoys the taste of fear, for fuck’s sake.

And at no point during the brokering of the deal with VM did she ever say she’d stop doing that. Sure, she promised to leave VM and maybe even all of Tal’Dorei alone, but first of all, wow, promises, amazing. Words are wind.

Second of all, this entire plan happened because Raishan wanted to return to her happy existence of subjugating people and ransacking temples and spreading terror throughout her own domain. That’s how she got that curse in the first place.

So even if we take VM never thinking about what Thordak could actually tell her at face value because they only briefly discussed it on-screen, I’d say there’s still a bit of a moral conundrum to just let her go and keep on keeping on in what she’s been doing before she was cursed.

And I mean, VM does discuss briefly that whatever knowledge Thordak could have for her would at the very least make her a bigger threat than she already was. If he’d played her all along, boom goes the dynamite. You can’t tell me Raishan wouldn’t destroy shit just to blow off steam after that.

If he told her a straight-up cure, she’d be a bigger threat to humanity due to her cure making her more powerful and more long-lived.

But considering how decades of research didn’t do shit in helping her, given how D&D universes work, the only reasonable options Thordak could have had for her would be 1. a wish spell, 2. direct access to a deity, 3. dracolichdom. That’s kind of all what’s left when Greater Restoration or Remove Curse don’t do the trick.

All of which are not things you want unleashed upon the world, especially not by a being who has already proven that it will go to ridiculously destructive lengths for its own benefit alone.

Also, just throwing that out there, it’s not like VM didn’t agree that Raishan should not, under any circumstances, access the knowledge Thordak might have for her. Vax didn’t exactly act not according to plan, the plan just could have been executed better.

(Also Raishan did kind of shoot first, but that’s neither here nor there.)

So, no, attacking her, hell, following her at all wasn’t “smart”. Three people died as a result. But, and I’m bringing this up because I just rediscovered @out-there-on-the-maroon post on that topic, these people do not play a “smart” game. Or an efficient one. Or anything that has anything to do with the path of least resistance and going the easy way because it’s smart.

Even if Raishan kept true to her word not to bother VM ever again, she’d go off and terrorize people with her newly regained powers, even before lichdom came into play. That’d be blood VM would have had on their hands in any case.

And that’s just assuming Matt would break his long-standing trend of consequences biting the players in the ass eventually. And letting a now possibly all powerful or lichified dragon out into the world is something that can’t just let go like that. She’d be back in some way, shape, or form. A

nd it’s not like Raishan was remorseful about the fight breaking out in the first place, just about the effort and resources she’d burn in fighting them off, because Raishan is a “smart” player.

Also, just throwing that out there, if you think breaking a deal is enough to bring down alignments and make VM the most evilest and revolting people ever, what’s releasing a dragon o certified mass destruction into the world? Yeeaah, I see no moral high ground here.