#it comes from the Vox Machina campaign

[bourbontrend]

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[g1ngerbeer]

stuff i drew last night while entranced by pre-stream percy

[laurasbailey]

is it weird that the bells hells party dynamic might be my favourite

[sunburstsky]

obsessed with what they’ve done re: Mythcarver as foreshadowing for post Campaign 1 Episode 85. they really have done so much good work this season showing hints of things to come later in the campaign and little fixes that make things cleaner

[donteatthefishtacos]

Something I love about what’s going on in CR that you can only get in an actual play is the dual views of the past campaign characters.

When BH met up with Keyleth she appeared larger than life out of a tree and took them to Whitestone where they met the Lord and Lady. Who were intimidating and imposing and held Laudna’s potential resurrection in their hands. And then Pike came in to actually perform the resurrection, THE cleric of the Everlight on break from running her bakery.

And then the story switches to Vox Machina. Keyleth lost sleep coming up with titles for Bell’s Hells. Vex reassures The Voice of the Tempest that she’s a good leader and jokes about her grumpy old man husband. Pike and Grog are pissed out drunk in a bar and self-conscious about their bodies. Pike is depressed about Scanlan. Grog has no idea what’s going on with Ruidus. Percy is Exandrian Batman, eccentric and bizarre and still down bad for his wife. Scanlan is having a post-third-divorce quarter-life crisis. Cerkonos like sexual jokes.

They are legends of Exandria but they’re still dumbasses and I loved seeing it.

[shorthaltsjester]

doing questionable things like rewatching a bard’s lament for “fun” and scanlan and vex you will always be famous. the fact that scanlan brings up that they’ve travelled across planes to fix vex’s daddy issues but then it’s vex’s daddy issues that ground her rebuttal to scanlan when she tells him to stop treating kaylie like an object. and god. vex’s “fuck him! fuck him for not saying anything sooner. and fuck us for not asking.” in the immediate aftermath, and then once she has time to put her walls back up, vex’s “my take-away from scanlan is that we all talk too much.”

the fact that vex was the one who made that comment that without his magic scanlan is just some guy but he’s also the some guy that vex spends the campaign looking up to (even if she does it through barbs and snark), the fact that when vex was fighting against saundor hearing things like “unproven ally” scanlan was all jokes until he realized how much vex believed what was being said to her. the fact that when scanlan comes back, it’s vex who literally sees through his disguise.

what do you mean scanlan was a deadbeat father who discovered a daughter that he did love but loved only as an object until vex called him out on it? what do you mean vex was a woman who struggled to forgive in part due to her crapshoot father and she was the first to forgive scanlan when he came back?

vex and scanlan also have such interesting interactions in terms of the balance of snark, silliness, and sincerity. it’s not uncommon from any characters of sam or laura’s since they are both silly little guys who also love drama and roasting each other especially when it comes to character rp, but as always it’s so dynamic when it’s the two of them bouncing off each other, especially when they’re doing so through scanlan and vex who are already bitchy characters (affectionate) with humour as a deflection method. but it’s a silly and deeply sincere moment when vex finally puts the witch hat scanlan gave her back on with his promise that he won’t run away from the final battle. it is one of my favourite laughable moments in c1 but it also reeks of sincerity when scanlan asks vex if she prefers planetar scanlan or normal scanlan and vex tells him he is fucking hot as a planetar, but she loves him like he was and he’s her favourite when he’s just himself.

like. they’re insane do you understand. the dawnfather asks vex to prove herself and scanlan turns her into a dragon to help her succeed, pelor asks vox machina what vex means to them and scanlan says she’s greedy and mean and the most perfect of them all. the knowing mistress asks scanlan to prove himself and vex escorts him on a broom he unlocked for her and then she picks an impossible lock for him, ioun tries to remind scanlan that his strength is the joy he provides to his friends and he makes a deflective quip that he’s really powerful and vex undercuts his deflection with a sincere assertion that he is. scanlan cast his last wish spell letting her see her brother on her wedding day. vex sent herself across the continent alone with her worry and grief while scanlan’s corpse lay awaiting resurrection to ensure that his daughter could be there to either bring him back or say goodbye.

they are the platonic chosen soulmates of all time to me. i make a post like this like once a year minimum and it’s because they Haunt me. both sam and laura said what if we made high charisma characters using their charisma as a shield and humour as a weapon and they saw through each other’s masks but they never explicitly talked about it to one another. good riddance to talks machina but i will never forget the episode post bard’s lament with laura and sam where sam revealed that vex was the only one who said anything that actually got through to scanlan and another episode where laura revealed that the reason vex was so angry and sad when scanlan left was that vex felt like her and scanlan had a unique bond where they were the only two who really saw one another’s masks for what they were. also laura providing the insight that while vex was actively working on being more forgiving, another reason she was so open and happy with scanlan when he came back was that vex didn’t want to scare him away again.

what am i supposed to do with all that? be normal about scanlan and vex? literally impossible

[utilitycaster]

I really like Taliesin elaborating on the inspiration from the 90s LA punk scene, in which he said a lot of the people he knew were just people looking for hope in a world that has been incredibly unfair to them. It's a very empathetic view towards people who, as he said, often are dealing with injustice and disadvantages.

He also mentions that many of these punks were dealing with drug and alcohol problems (and while he did not want that to be central to Ashton's character and wanted to focus instead on chronic pain for a number of reasons, including personal, Ashton definitely relies on alcohol for palliative reasons). More generally, we see Ashton look for hope and answers in a lot of places that end up being extremely incorrect. The most obvious one is with the shard of Rau'shan, which, after multiple people advised them against taking it with very clear warnings, they decided to still attempt to absorb, with nearly-fatal results; but there were flashes of this with their earlier cynicism towards Eshteross vs. a much more begrudging acceptance of the transactional worldview of Ratanish or Jiana Hexum.

Ashton often places his own pain in a position of honor, and in doing so can discount that of other people. He's been remarkably unlucky, to be clear; I think that's part of it. We as the audience know that their statement that no one in that room has felt helpless in their lives is demonstrably false about pretty much all of Vox Machina and their allies, as well as the Bright Queen. He says Keyleth maybe does know, not realizing that of Keyleth and Vex, one has been a homeless runaway rather like himself, and it's not the one he's saying knows helplessness. In a way, to hold on to that hope, they find themselves telling themselves a lot of lies because otherwise they have to face the truth that their suffering did not make them more qualified or better; it was just unfair and it might still keep happening. He blames the gods because then at least there's a reason and not just absolutely random chance that he was born to a self-important cultist, happened to survive a long-shot ill-advised ritual and wake up in the desert of another continent, happened to be the one thrown out the window of Hexum Manor, and happened to be saved with a Potion of Possibility. To be clear, they've since made a name for themself on their own merits, but a lot of who they are, both in terms of the traumatic and difficult elements and in terms of what now makes them special was dumb luck, good or bad.

For Ashton, for those LA punks Taliesin knew, for the Vanguard and for Ludinus and for countless people in Exandria and in our actual world, a lot of grasping for hope becomes grasping for a meaning for pain and suffering. I'd argue that this is a pretty major theme Taliesin explores with all his characters. However, just because the pain is real doesn't mean the conclusions one comes to as a result of it are inviolate and above reproach. It is possible to have extremely valid pain and trauma and to be incredibly wrong about its source or what it means, or to deal with it in ways that will either make it worse or that will inflict pain, even inadvertently, on others. And I think the theme of the campaign is very much that; what happens when someone either chooses to or must let the decisions they made to deal with a moment - or a life - of pain be writ large on both themselves and the world?

[littlepinksapphire]

The people who hate that Vox Machina and the Mighty Nein are featured in this campaign have never made sense to me. They talk about it like it’s some lame gimmick. Guys, this is an actual real life game of DnD. I know some people think that’s up for debate, but it’s not. How often does a group last long enough to meet their own characters from a previous campaign? That’s actually so rare and special.

Critical Role works because first and foremost, it’s a game between friends. So many people are eager to prove it’s scripted or complain when a story choice is made that they don’t agree with. Matt’s not trying to please you, he’s trying to please his friends. You, the viewer, and your experience, come second.

We got to watch Travis shed tears of joy getting to see Grog, excuse me, Grogory for the first time. But thats just a lame gimmick, I guess? I personally wouldn’t trade seeing the childlike wonder and excitement at the table for a supposedly better story beat. Go write some fanfiction about it and stop being entitled.

[thisisnotthenerd]

putting the tl;dr at the top as a poll and the commentary under the cut because it’s quite rambly and it’s also late and i’m tired.

*whether dorian is one of these is up for debate

there’s some discussion of bell’s hells not having the “it” factor for a lot of people. even though it’s my first campaign and the only one i’ve mostly watched live, i kind of have to agree.

there’s a distinctive lack of investment in backstory for the group in terms of what they’ve spent time on in campaign. i think fearne is the only one who’s been done justice, even though we’ve seen other exploration, because they’ve been to her home multiple times, and while her backstory isn’t central to the main plot, it is close. it’s enough distance for her to be able to develop as a character but also for us to see where she came from.

imogen’s is tied directly to the main moon plot, so she’s had screen time aplenty, but less time to develop quietly, as laura does really well. i might argue for orym, but that’s because his is kept simple but with depth. his backstory comes through in the acting because he’s put up against his family members occasionally, but he’s a little guy at root.

for everyone else it’s been short detours. sometimes not even that. the spotlight oscillates between moon plot and god arguments with indecisive wandering in between.

while not everyone in vox machina inherently had a deep personal connection to the big bads of their campaigns, they didn’t need to. they did it for their friends, because they loved and trusted one another deeply. they made decisions about what they were facing and stuck to it, even when it meant sacrifice. they made multiple levels of friendship around and across the table.

at this point bell’s hells has been told a bunch of different things to do. and honestly i don’t know if they ever decided on one.

that’s not the point of this though.

there’s some archetypes or dnd players out there: roleplayers and power gamers. people who are all in it for the story and people who are all in it for the game. and it reflects in the characters they build.

somehow bell’s hells (collectively) is neither.

they don’t have strong investment in the plot collectively. the character concepts range from simple to deeply complex, and i have to say that i think the simpler has worked better for a plot-heavy campaign, because the characters that started simpler had a chance to develop over the campaign rather than competing for time between the plot and their own stories hanging over their heads.

take dorian. he was a humble bard, a former noble, who’s trying to make his way in the world. he refused great power from an evil source and paid the price in the loss of his brother. he fell in love as the world ended, and is still trying to sing the songs of the people he loves because he wants to bring people joy and bring them together. he’s invested in stopping predathos because of his friends, but also to avenge loss, and to protect the people of his homeland and take up his responsibility as heir to the silken squall.

it took a paragraph. but at the table, even when he was with the crown keepers for a few months, he fits right in. he’s had growth while keeping true to his core.

i’m not going to get into the rest now but there’s a definite element of throwing shit at a wall and seeing what sticks.

anyways, beyond the difficulties of backstory, they’re not super optimized. i’m of the belief that optimization works in tandem with roleplay—the characters are growing and changing over the course of the story, and having the mechanics trace that and make choices impactful is a big part of the appeal of the game.

watching vox machina and the mighty nein fight is a treat because not only are they level 20 and therefore godlike in power, their mechanics support interesting combat where failure hits hard because they’re built to succeed. when someone fails a save or misses it means something. they have options in their wheelhouse but they’ve found their niches and know how to play to their strengths.

bell’s hells is playing high level combat right now, but they have middling stats: lots of dump stats, 10-14s in the middle and some attacks/spell saves that aren’t as high as you’d expect of level 15 characters. they have several characters with perhaps too many options, and have made some weird strategic decisions. they’re indecisive. in combination with fluctuating luck from the dice, there’s times where they can wreck house, but also times of them failing saves, missing on full turns, losing resources, and overall failing more than they succeed.

also bell’s hells don’t make big decisions in combat unless they’re absolutely forced to. in the last arc pre-final battle, the big battles were otohan on ruidus, dominox and ludinus in aeor (+delilah), zathuda and the unseelie in the feywild. with otohan, they were dying all around until fcg’s sacrifice. literally end of the line. then in aeor, they fought to end dominox, got whammied with downfall, and then had the delilah fight, but then her sealing came later. they fought in the arch heart’s temple, but the big revelations came on the heels of that, between the arch heart themself and then zathuda being strung up on the loom.

but of a tangent: i don’t think naddpod and critical role can be fairly compared, because they’re different in tone and telling very different stories. i relistened to naddpod c1 recently along with the last few episodes of c3 as we approach the finale, and while they have gotten more creative on the character building side, the story is still well done and combat is fun to listen to. they have had moments of deep tragedy on naddpod. they’ve had cameos of old characters, and even had one of them as a pc for a full arc mid-campaign 3. they’ve explored the future of the world of bahumia after the events of c1.

and while the story is satisfying and fun, the combat is also satisfying and fun. not just because murph is really good at building combats that are interesting in theater of the mind, but because the characters are built to be good at what they do. and when they go down, when they miss, when they fail, it hits harder. but they bounce back and keep going even when the circumstances suck. and they make narratively important decisions during combat.

with bell’s hells, i have often noted a split between their combat and roleplay. i like matt’s combats. i think they’re fun and make good use of a variety of enemies, terrain, and complicating factors. with vm and mn, it makes for really engaging episodes of combat, where they make use of the environment tactically and get to discover elements of how the field is set up as they go. i’m using the recent examples, which are not entirely inclusive but generally reflective of their combat trends.

vox machina fought their way off an airship, onto a chaotic battlefield, and then stealthed up to the malleus key, where they proceeded to defeat ozo cruth, break the bloody bridge, and get vax out of imprisonment. the mighty nein stealthed around kreviris, met with the volition, zip lined to and blew up the arx creonum, and then snuck through to meet the weave mind in combat. i can recall fun details and clutch moves, big risks including characters dying, and overall, battles that had character interaction.

as i’ve talked about before, bell’s hells gets whomped. they swing for the fences on some things, but when it doesn’t pay off it’s not just a missed opportunity, it’s often an active barrier or a loss of valuable resources that drive them closer to crisis.

imogen’s whirlwind, laudna’s disintegrate, and dorian’s forcecage were all great moves this episode. it also means they’re down some of their highest level spells before they actually face ludinus and/or predathos. granted they have the orb. but whether they can use it will be variable.

[abitcaughtinthemiddle]

Glintshore is going to mean something different in The Legend of Vox Machina than it did in the original campaign

At this point in campaign 1, Vex and Percy has not yet hooked up and had been dancing around their feelings for each other. Laura and Taliesin have both said that Vex and Percy would never have admitted their feelings for each other hadn’t Percy died and Vex made her plea to him (true love’s Nat 20).

In fact, Taliesin has said that he was ready to let Percy die permanently and move on with his backup character (fun fact: it was actually Mollymauk from Campaign 2 that was his backup C1 character) but Laura’s choice and the Nat 20 roll was too much to simply ignore (and thank god for that because Perc’ahlia is my prized ship and my Roman Empire).

The timeline of things being very different in TLOVM means that we’ve gotten a sort of sped up development of not only the relationship between Percy and Vex but the relationship Percy has with himself. As we’ve been seeing in the show, Percy seems much lighter, much less burdened by the weight of Orthax and revenge. In episode 6, we see him have a touching moment of with Vex about the future, talking about his hopes for Whitestone.

In the campaign, he was still carrying around this weight of guilt and shame in a way that wasn’t dealt with like it was in the show (with his self sacrifice in Ank’Harel, taking responsibility for inventing guns- bringing widespread consequences across all of Exandria). This never happened in the live stream. Glintshore ended up acting like this penance: Percy dying at the hands of the very weapon he created.

Since we’ve seen a more “carefree” happier Percy in the show, and he’s already had his moment of self flagellation, Glintshore is going to mean something else in the show.

Of course, we all know this is going to be a wake up call for Vex to finally admit her love for him and stop pretending she can just fool around with him -heart be damned. I think it’s going to mean a lot for Vax and Keyleth too.

Since they’ve set up plot line that Vax is the one concerned about Keyleth’s long life span, I feel like Percy’s death is going to wake Keyleth up tot he fact that everyone she knows and loves will die before her, and she’ll see a little bit more where Vax is coming from- and I think Vax is going to start to realize that Keyleth can handle herself around loss and that he’s being an absolute fool by pushing her away.

Like Marisha’s said in interviews, these upcoming episodes are going to deal with facing fears- and I think Percy’s death and finding a way to resurrect him is going to touch on a lot more of Vox Machina’s fears than just Percy and Vex. I can’t wait to see how it plays out.

[deramin2]

A Quick Guide To Getting Caught Up On Critical Role Fast

This guide is for people who want the fastest way official to get caught up on all 3 Critical Role campaigns without seeing the full actual play episodes. They're all made so that the AP will still be enjoyable later even if you know what happens. There's no "right" way to get into the series, and already having an idea of what happens can even help make the APs more enjoyable and easier to understand.

Summary:

The Legend of Vox Machina

Crit Recap Animated

Exandria: An Intimate History

Critical Role Abridged

Guide:

Campaign 1:

The Legend of Vox Machina on Amazon Prime is the animated adaptation of C1 by the same creators. Sam Riegel said the creative approach is this was the version in a later play. All the important bits are there, but they get to those moments differently.

The Legend of Vox Machina has 3 seasons out now that cover events up through at least episode 85. A 4th season is in the works and will probably cover the final arc.

Campaign 2:

An animated adaptation for Amazon Prime called "Mighty Nein" is in the works, but not out yet.

Crit Role Animated is an older comedic summary series presented by their Lore Keeper that covers the whole campaign in 10 videos. Great if you want the gist.

It's like a history crash course history video meant to get you curious to learn the full story later. Great way to get a sense of who people are and what they've done. Available on YouTube and their streaming platform Beacon.

Exandrian History Review:

Exandria: An Intimate History is a timeline review of key events in world history, starting from the creation.

It was released before Campaign 3 as bonus content. It represents what the average person in Exandria knows about world history up to that point.

Campaign 3:

Critical Role Abridged is the Campaign 3 AP condensed down into 1 to 1.5 hours. It mostly cuts down combat to the narrated results and reduces table chatter and indecisiveness. It's a great way to experience the full campaign.

Critical Role Abridged is coming out 1 a week at a time on YouTube and 2 a week on Beacon. YouTube is currently up to episode 25. Beacon is up to episode 47. The AP is at episode 109. At some point you'll have to switch to full episodes to catch up.

Wiki:

There's also 2 world-class wikis where's you can look up extensive and meticulously cited information about anything you need. I prefer The Encyclopedia Exandria.

Viewing Notes:

An important thing to know about "continuity" in Critical Role is that it takes a more realistic view of how history is passed down through the ages and even dedicated academics will never know the full story or be fully correct. They know versions colored by in-world biases and lost knowledge.

Which is great for you the viewer because any campaign you comes into, the characters don't know most of what happened in past games. What they actually know will come up in game. The players have above table reactions and some subtle in jokes, but try not to act on meta knowledge.

It's structured a lot like reading one history book and then wanting to go back and read more about past events that set the stage for all those things to happen. They've tried to make it easier to come into the story happening now.

I certainly enjoyed watching the full APs from the beginning, and I think you can get a deeper understanding of the story from them, but it takes thousands of hours to catch up on the story that way and it isn't realistic for everyone. Each series builds on the consequences of past events more than they rely on unexpected twists, so already knowing what happens just helps you notice all the little things that led to them. Similar to how Shakespeare's plays are often more enjoyable to watch unfold if you already know the basic plot points going into them.

Happy viewing, and I hope this helps you or someone you know get into this very rich and interesting story!

[mareastrorum]

Hello! I’ve been looking at your blog after Critical Role episodes for a couple of weeks now and I have to agree with you wholeheartedly about pretty much all of it. I wanted to ask you your opinion on the idea that a majority of us are calling Bells Hells the bad guys because all they’re doing is ‘wanting to dismantle the oppressive force that aims to destroy an entire established society of innocent people’. I’m having trouble understanding what oppressive force that is?

Thanks for the ask! There's two parts to this, so I'm going to address them separately.

First, there is no "oppressive force that aims to destroy an entire established society of innocent people." Like, the only group that came close to that in this campaign was the Weave Mind and the Imperium, which intended to take over Exandria in its entirety and subject the entire population to hivemind slavery--but Bell's Hells did little to oppose them. Vox Machina (backed up by an army) demolished the Imperium's main forces at the Exandrian base of the bloody bridge. The Mighty Nein killed the Weave Mind and then started mopping up their allies that remained on Ruidus. Bell's Hells did nothing to support that rebellion other than assist on a scouting/sabotage mission and then flee.

Otherwise, there is no force aiming to destroy society. Ludinus wanted Predathos out so it could eat the gods, and there was no intent about anything other than that. He did not care one way or the other about collateral damage. Predathos doesn't either, but it wants to eat, and we do not know what level of divinity is too small for it to prioritize. And let's be serious, unless a god flees and lures it away, there's no reason for Predathos not to look at a planet full of life and think, "Hmmm, it might not taste good, but I am so fucking hungry."

A good while ago, when the Hells had initially reached Vasselheim, I saw discussion of whether Vasselheim and other Exandrian forces intended to wipe out all Reilorans and other Ruidus-based species. I think Evoroa's plea and assistance made directly to the leadership of Vasselheim has already prevented that potential result. Of course, the Exandrians are working together as a collective of dozens of factions, and each of those has untold numbers of individuals working for them. It's possible some of them will insist on war anyway, but given the actions of the three campaign parties, I don't see that happening on an organized scale. Regardless, Bell's Hells aren't focusing on that right now, and nothing they could/would do with Predathos would affect that either.

The only other faction that comes close to that idea is the Betrayer Gods, but they don't care about society. They want genocide. They want to murder every single mortal in existence, and then torment their immortal souls for all eternity. I literally cannot overstate the disdain the Betrayers have for mortals. They are Exandrians' ultimate enemy. The Divine Gate is the only thing protecting mortals from the Betrayers, and it requires every god to unanimously agree to drop it. That is phenomenal protection. There's been no serious threat to it since its creation.

In particular, I want to highlight that "the gods" as a category of entity are not a united faction. The gods don't rule anything on Exandria--not even Vasselheim. That's a purely mortal project! Mortals decided to build a city dedicated to the gods, and given that it's filled with their followers, the gods have historically spent particular attention to protecting it. That makes perfect sense, and it doesn't mean the gods are in charge of it.

Obviously, there will be other factions across Exandria that could fit that bill, but Bell's Hells hasn't had to deal with them in this campaign. Like, chaotic evil factions exist, they're just not in this story right now.

Next, whether Bell's Hells are villains, bad guys, etc.

I've written up how I assess villains in my pinned post. That's my general approach to any type of story, whether it's interactive, written, oral, etc. It's a very broad overview of when is a villain an effective narrative device? I am rather harsh in my criticism of villains: if they didn't improve the story, they should not have been included at all.

We could cherrypick through the various episodes to come up with an argument that Bell's Hells are the bad guys, but my problem with them is that they aren't effective villains. A villain's primary purpose is to highlight a theme in the negative: what is the wrong thing to do in these circumstances, and why is that? The reason they aren't effective is that they don't have a motivating purpose.

Bell's Hells are a chaotic faction that consistently deviates from whatever is requested of them. They claim to be for the people, then denigrate and oppose every faction they've encountered. They claim to have changed their minds about some of the gods (the Matron and the Arch Heart in particular), then repeatedly ignore or contradict the plain statements told to them, but they still seek out the gods' instructions regardless. This carelessness or apathy makes it impossible to map a philosophy onto the PCs other than "I felt like doing it in the moment."

None of them have been able to articulate a reason that they chose this path. Maybe the players will come up with some hamfisted excuse next episode, but it's still going to be unsatisfying from a narrative viewpoint. This stream had hundreds of hours to show that and instead needs someone to say it in the last episode. It's terrible storytelling, and none of them could claim that it was impossible to see this confrontation coming. We've known it was coming since Ludinus successfully bridged Exandria and Ruidus. There was time, and it was not spent wisely.

Going beyond dialogue, there's no consistency to Bell's Hells's actions except the desire to kill Ludinus. That muddled any potential message that could be conveyed about them as villains in a story except "kill Ludinus in particular." We can't even say they oppose any existing hegemony because none has been established in Exandria. There's no racial, economic, social, religious, etc. group dominating the world. Again, as said above, the gods don't rule anything, and they're stuck behind the gate.

Any potential to build Bell's Hells into worthwhile villains was squandered. Everyone but Orym had an explicit, tailor-made opportunity to lean into their darker personality traits, and every one of them chickened out--except Ashton, who gave into his desire to be special and have power to lash out at people standing over him. Unfortunately, Ashton's attempt to absorb another shard of a primordial would have also broken the game on a D&D level, so that got reversed and reworked into a character moment that also had no lasting impact on his character arc. Ashton hasn't bothered exploring it since. That's really the core problem: every time the PCs had the option to pursue a villainous path, they ran the fuck in the opposite direction, then dithered about what to do.

Without conviction, villains are merely bullies. They're just here to be mean, stop other people from getting what they want, and jeer at others when they get their way. We saw that in this latest episode. There's nothing Bell's Hells wants. They don't even want to be involved. They're just doing it because they can't even commit to going home--because they're player characters in a D&D game, and the players didn't want to switch to new characters.

That makes for a terrible villain story. Like, once we see the final episode and all the PCs have had an opportunity to take action and speak on their own behalf, we'd be able to revisit this with more definitive statements. Unfortunately, I can't think of a single way this could go that would correct the flaws I've already listed. It's far too late to correct the characters' lack of direction to develop a coherent villain arc for any of Bell's Hells.

[toaarcan]

In theory, the ramifications of the choices the party are making on Exandrian politics should be, uh, interesting.

Like, these guys come out of nowhere, they present themselves as the ones that are going to stop Ludinus, and the Exandrian Accord are pretty sceptical about them, especially given their professed lack of skin the game and frequently-expressed contempt for the gods.

But Keyleth, leader of the Ashari and one of the members of Vox Machina, personally vouches for them, gives them all fancy new titles, and promises that they really are going to be the ones to pull it off.

And then they (probably) kill Ludinus, and in the space of a few minutes, doomer themselves into deciding that "Well Predathos is getting released eventually anyway so we might as well do it", go into its cage, let it out, and then create a plan that doesn't kill the gods, but does render them mortal and strip of them of their power, which they feel is a solution because it satisfies the anti-god streak among them but doesn't account for the myriad problems with removing the gods from the table, like:

The massive amount of demons waiting to do an incursion

The potential for certain gods to hide and maintain their divinity until Predathos is gone, then becoming the sole god.

Non-Tengarian gods like Vecna potentially not being on the menu

Fucking Tharizdun

Every Cleric or Paladin that wielded divine power from a god losing their powers and having to learn to channel divine magic for themselves, wiping out magical healthcare because every priest on the planet got level-reset.

The Unseelie Fey being obvious heirs apparent to the gods' thrones.

The fucktons of rogue Celestials and Fiends this would create.

It also adds a new one: The gods incarnated as mortals before, and became gods again. If that possibility isn't blocked off (which it very well might not be), the gods could regain their divinity, which could not only potentially bring Predathos back to Exandria, but also basically guarantees Calamity 2 instead of averting it, by turning the Betrayers into mortal time-bombs.

"Welp, Torog just remembered who he is, we're all fucked."

It really is incredible that these guys were stood up in front of the world, got vouched for by a hero that they'd been looking to for support all campaign, convinced the world to trust them to save the gods, and then decided to not save the gods, or at least, not do it in any way the people asking for the gods to be saved can appreciate.

[housederiva]

I don't understand the hype behind Manfred's voice actor? I have no idea who he is, help :(

I genuinely, truthfully believe that Matthew Mercer is one of the greatest voice actors currently alive. He's also a phenomenal storyteller and a good person (source in the last point: I've met him and hung out with him while I was crew on something he was on in the past)

Off the top of my head he voices Fairbanks in Absolution, Leon Kennedy, RJ McCready, Goro Majima, Spyro at one point, a bunch of Digimon and additional voices in Regular Show, Trafalgar Law, Minsc, the 'high noon' guy from Overwatch, and of course voices throughout Vox Machina. He also does a phenomenal job coming up with voices on the fly for his DND campaigns in Critical Role which Vox Machina was the first of (personally I hope that his Manfred voice is close to Henry Crabgrass)

He can also make this sound:

Here's what Henry Crabgrass sounds like, the voice starts about a minute in and was a completely improvised...though this was recorded in October of 2020 when I think he was already brought on board for Veilguard. So if I am right about the voice being used maybe it wasn't completely improvised

[kerosene-in-a-blender]

I've been thinking about the fact that Campaign 3 is clearly ending after the defeat of Ludinus and whatever the Hells decide re: Predathos, and how that's clear because so much time has been dedicated to The Moon Plot and the only things the Hells might possibly have left to do afterwards are best described as a series of relatively low stakes errands. A thought which in turn lead me to thinking about the Taryon Darrington Arc from Campaign 1 and how it really consisted of... a series of relatively low stakes errands after an arc (The Chroma Conclave) that took up an incredible amount of the campaign's runtime. But I think the Taryon Darrington Arc, while solid but not great, does work better than a hypothetical equivalent arc would for Campaign 3, and the reasons I think this are twofold.

First of all, the Taryon Darrington Arc is well served by the fact that Campaign 1 was significantly more episodic than Campaign 3 has been. Campaign 1 had several easily delineated plot arcs over the course of it, and that structure allowed the Taryon Darrington arc to more naturally fit into the flow of the campaign than a similar arc would for Campaign 3, which has been dedicated to the Moon Plot from the start. The Taryon Darrington Arc in Campaign 1 is a solid but not standout plot arc in a campaign that has several, whereas in Campaign 3 such an arc would at best be a weird disconnected coda on a campaign that has had a defined arc throughout.

Secondly, while the Taryon Darrington Arc was defined by a series of largely disconnected errands, it did still have an emotional throughline. As it begins immediately after the Bard's Lament and introduces a new member to the rather insular Vox Machina, the Taryon Darrington Arc asks how Vox Machina will cope with having saved the world but lost part of their own family in the process, and how they will manage to integrate a new member while mourning the loss of another (in spite of having successfully raised that member from the dead). The loss of Scanlan and the introduction of Taryon shook up Vox Machina's group dynamics and it is that shake up that the stakes of the arc are built around. They're still lower than the stakes of the preceding Chroma Conclave Arc and the subsequent Vecna Arc, but they do exist. Meanwhile I'm not confident that a similar arc with Bells Hells would have such emotional stakes holding it together.

The Hells are notably the least bonded group out of the main campaign adventuring parties and people have come and gone from them since Dorian's initial departure in Episode 14, so it seems far less likely to me that they're be able to carry an entire arc on reorienting themselves after any possible losses in the Ludinus/Predathos fight, especially considering how little impact FCG's death and the subsequent introduction of Braius ultimately had on them. Given the stakes of the matter at hand, a theoretical Bells Hells post-climax arc could also focus on reorienting themselves in a vastly changed world, but the Hells have been so non-politically minded throughout the campaign that I don't know if those emotional stakes could carry them either. I could be wrong, but I don't see where Bells Hells could develop as solid an emotional throughline arcoss an errands arc as Vox Machina managed in the Taryon Darrington Arc. They're just the wrong party, and Campaign 3 the wrong campaign, to support such an arc the way Vox Machina and Campaign 1 did.

[shorthaltsjester]

i truly am baffled by some of the cr fandom when it comes to the topic of the gods and c1 and death in general because. the raven queen didn’t kill vax. in fact she gave him more time. she Does get the blame from keyleth and some from vex but even those two by the end were more so just holding grudges wrapped up in their own issues that were exacerbated by vax’s choices. but it was always vax’s choice. which, y’know, i’m aware of a portion of the cr fandom’s propensity for dismantling every interesting choice a character makes into something forced upon them, but the role of fate in exandria has never been like bad faith you must adhere to the path chosen for you, it’s much more like what brennan has spoken about wrt specificity: as one makes more choices they become more particular to a given outcome. but that’s not some curse by the gods that dooms characters that’s literally just. what living is.

and of course death is a complicated thing that everyone approaches differently but. god the amount of people who view vax’s dynamic with the raven queen as an injustice or his death as some unforgivable thing the raven queen caused some how? in the words of laura bailey, Were We Watching The Same Orb? it isn’t an injustice that vax, completely willing to pay whatever it cost him to save his sister, was bound to the Deal He Agreed To. his role as the champion was one he found meaning and purpose in. further, it was the raven queen that allowed him to be resurrected later in the campaign. like, it isn’t fair that vax had so little time but it is time he chose and time he was given, but vox machina tends to fall on the reaping the benefits side of unfairness of power in exandria. if what makes the gods — particularly the matron of ravens — irredeemable is that they have the power to make choices that mortals can’t like denying someone’s resurrection, how irredeemable must the group of heroes called vox machina (whose members drop like flies to be revived moments later) be to the everyday person who just has to watch the people they love die and make peace with it?

of course it sucks that vax could not have a happy ending or epilogue like the rest of vm, except of course, vex has a family and is happy and loved, and keyleth is strong and alive and protected, and i think that looks a lot like what vax wanted most.