#cr corellon

[dreaming-of-hope]

I think one of my favorite things about Brennan's DMing is his physical shifts when he changes to specific characters. And when he drops into Asmodeus, it's not a chest puff, proud, it's a slithering settling into a chair to watch the chaos unfold. Also shoutout to when he decided to become Bolo and you see him literally lurch into the scene

ME TOO! Brennan is such fantastic actor and he uses all his tools when it comes to make memorable DMPCs. I've been thinking so much about this since last thursday when, and I'm sorry for the big SPOILERS, The Arch Heart imitated Asmodeus to try to convince Braius. Abubakar's impression wasn't perfect and it wasn't meant to be, as he wasn't Asmodeus in the flesh, but the way he lowered himself, the way he locked eyes with Sam and made him doubt whether or not he was the real deal, it all felt very Brennan coded.

[ariadne-mouse]

Bell's Hells: we've been wanting to talk to the gods directly and they sort of have communicated but they've been a little oblique

Corellon the Arch Heart, screeching up in their fey sports car and abducting them to their realm: hello :) let's chat :))))

[johnnyspells]

[floweroflaurelin]

METEOR SWARM!!!!

[undead-knick-knack]

I think Ludinus might have inadvertently converted all of Bells Hells to worshipping the Arch Heart

[definitionofacritter]

S.I.L.A.H.A. ||| Corellon the Arch Heart

[toaarcan]

Molaesmyr, or "Why wiping out a city is okay if you're me", by Ludinus Da'leth.

I was waiting for a drop like that, to be honest. To find out that Ludinus has already done what was, for the gods, their darkest moment, and for him it was Tuesday.

The gods destroyed Aeor because Aeor was pointing a gun at their heads, for them it was self-defence and they still tried to find other options first. Ludinus destroyed Molaesmyr to try and reach the moon, and wrote it off as an acceptable loss.

And the thing is, the people of Molaesmyr were just as, if not more helpless against Ludinus than Aeor was against the gods! Aeor had a god-killing weapon in their basement that they were gearing up to use! And when the gods did attack Aeor, they had to do so in mortal form, which rendered them much weaker. For the first half of the battle in the Factorum Malleus, Aeor is winning, the gods are losing HP and falling to bad saving throws and getting interrupted at every turn. It's only once SILAHA gets free of the stun and manages to drop his Meteor Swarm on the wards that the tide turns.

There was no such chance for Molaesmyr. They probably didn't even know what he was doing until he'd already exploded their homes. They weren't pointing a gun at him. They were just in the way.

But it's okay when Ludinus has vastly more power than anyone else and throws their lives away to achieve his goals.

I think gods like the Dawnfather, the Everlight, the Arch Heart, the Lawbearer, the Knowing Mistress, and the Matron of Ravens care vastly more about the mortals that Ludinus claims to champion than he does. I think it broke their hearts to kill as many as they did, while for Ludinus, it was easy.

[ludinusdaleth]

1,000 years later. the same questions.

Critical Role Campaign 3, Episode 100, "Downfall Part Two" // Critical Role Campaign 3, Episode 107, "Under the Arch Heart’s Eye"

[californiannostalgia]

On a single fateful day of Exandrian history, deep in the caverns of the Bloody Moon, eight people who have tried to kill each other so many times fight tooth and nail to keep each other alive as they battle a nightmare of the gods.

(In a different cave on this same cursed moon, their Aeormaton cleric gave their life to save all of them.)

Imogen pushes herself up on bloodied elbows amongst her battered friends, eyes fixed on the dream that has haunted her for years.

(In a different age, an Aeormaton god called down a storm from the stars to smite a flying city.)

She is the storm.

Imogen Temult, how do you want to do this?

[snowbreeze64]

downfall

[marvelousbelladonna]

Divine faces revealed!

S. I. L. A. H. A. aka the Arch Heart

Trist aka the Everlight

Ayden aka the Dawn Father

Asha aka the Wildmother

Emhira aka THE RAVEN QUEEN!!!

[reduviidaegirl]

“Ages ago the divine touched the real and your living form is the real reaching back, hand in hand, two dancers twirling in the stars forever.”

[ariadne-mouse]

Tbh I think Asmodeus, the faker and deceiver, would get a kick out of Corellon pretending to be him to deceive his worshipper. the layers have layers

[utilitycaster]

The thing about Ashton saying "WHAT DO YOU WANT" is that I really do understand that they are coming from a place of great pain and a genuinely awful life (and the Arch Heart doesn't really give a good answer either, which is similarly frustrating) but we keep getting this answer throughout the campaign, if not for the Arch Heart at least for other deities, and it's that most simple and also frustrating of answers: consistent effort.

Why did FCG catch the eye of the Changebringer? consistent, repeated prayer, even if it wasn't perfect and could get kind of silly or even annoying to others. Orym is not a worshiper of the Wildmother, but he still repeatedly has reached out and tried to talk to her in good faith (pun unintended). And looking back at others from past campaigns, we learn of their ongoing service - in the cases of those who are introduced as already faithful, often from a young age (Pike, Caduceus, Jester though her deity is not one of the Prime/Betrayer pantheons). Both Vax and Fjord made considerable sacrifices of their own without promises from the gods first, in addition to smaller, regular moments of worship in the course of their stories.

I've never loved the line about there being no atheists in foxholes, because frankly I think it's unfair to atheists and paints them as selfish, fickle, and spineless when many atheists are none of those things. But I do think that a lot of the anti-god arguments fit into that sort of philosophy, that the gods are only to be paid attention to in the moment of great and desperate need and neglected otherwise, and we've seen the attendants of temples repeatedly say that isn't how it works; it takes time. The gods don't necessarily answer a single yell off the cliffs of Zephrah or a single visit, but they do see the repetition and respond to that.

I think everyone in the fandom, regardless of how they feel about the gods, understands there's not going to be a quick easy painless fix to this mess once Ludinus set it in motion, but I do think a lot of people expect there to be a lot of quick fixes to other things (in the story, in fandom, and in real life). And yeah, it does suck that Ashton, having a terrible time, might have had more luck had they prayed or gone to the same temple regularly for a while without necessarily seeing results...but it's also very real. You do have to take your stupid mental health walks regularly for a while (let alone your meds) before there's a payoff. you do still need to do the dishes while you're depressed or sick lest they pile up and make things worse. consistent effort that doesn't always have immediate satisfying results is extremely unglamorous and also it's how you have to do basically everything in life. Even in a time of crisis you need to avert the crisis and then get back to the slow and consistent work of fixing it and improving things in the aftermath.

[dnd-shows-have-my-soul]

I don’t think enough people are talking about the ages of these characters. Because we are given actual ages, which is something I initially thought was very odd. But now with the information that each PC is the mortal incarnation of a specific god, it really shares much about the plan they devised. Specifically about when the planning happened and the order they went in.

Trist and Asha are the oldest (39 & 38 respectively). Then SILAHA at 30, Emhira at 29 and finally Ayden at 15.

Melora and Sarenrae went first, both desperate to stop the city, one fueled by hatred, the other by loss. It is likely that the truce was called right after the Everlight lost most of her following to Asmodeus’ betrayal. Did she throw herself into this mission because of her grief? Is that why she connected so tightly to Trist and her life? Was she grieving her own?

Corellon and Matron were next, descending 10 years after the previous gods. The god of beauty and arts becoming artwork himself. The mortal turned god becoming mortal once again. Do you think she was scared to go back? Or was it a welcoming feeling? Being grounded by bones and blood, death allotted once again? Is what why she waited? Because she worried about the souls that would die without her greeting? Or was she simply afraid?

And finally, Pelor, sweet sweet Ayden. The last one to be born. The last one to leave. He likely stayed as long as he could. Keeping himself present and whole until he literally couldn't. He was the sun, he was life, he was hope. He was a god until he was a man and even then. When did he realize? When did his parents? Did they know from the moment he was born that there was a light within him? Or did their child walk into the fields one day and return an entity?

The fact that so much storytelling can occur within a single, unspoken detail is amazing to me. What an incredible thing indeed.

[towards-toramunda]

Oh I’m obsessed