#matronic

[abyssgrant]

I didn't post the Matron on Tumblr?? There's a cool time-lapse over on Instagram @abyssgrant

[danwhobrowses]

Chetney Pock O'Pea remains the luckiest old bastard in all of Exandria (and Ruidus)

[counterspelling]

Endless Bells Hells

[floweroflaurelin]

Are you here to take me to Mama?

—

Rewatching ep3 and every time I think about the Emissary I get choked up, so I painted them again! He’s going home, and there will be light 🍎

[malsorie]

Nightwarden.

[somewhatsentientspellbook]

There's just something so fascinating about the way the Exandrian pantheon has decided to handle the Aeor Situation™ - by electing a few of their kind to be born as mortals in order to infiltrate the city.

The first to bring herself low was Ioun, and I can only imagine how lonely that must have been for her. To feel infinite wisdom creeping into her adolescent mind? To rise through Aeor's ranks knowing what they'd do to her if the authorities discovered the truth of her existence? Waiting, hoping, perhaps even praying that the other gods would follow through with the plan.

Sarenrae has a husband and children as Trist. I can't help but consider the parallels to Liliana Temult, with a 'higher calling' pulling a mother away from her family. The conversations in the temple suggest that she would have been aware of what she was by the time she started her family. Yet she loves them, cherishes them, even knowing that she might not see them again. Will Amaris, Haylie, and Topher learn that Trist is a goddess? Or will that only be discovered when they find their way to her realm in Elysium?

The Matron was once mortal, and she willingly returned to that form in order to help her newfound siblings dismantle the Aeorian threat. Her steward since childhood was Purvan, helping raise and guide her despite his old age. Imagine being a little girl, guarded by the Champion of Ravens himself and his wolven companion, completely unaware of your own divinity until later in life. Imagine the night she woke up, remembering her ascendency, seeing Purvan and recognising him.

And what of the families that gave birth to and raised the four Betrayer Gods? What of the halfling family who watched their precocious daughter scale a fence with far too much ease than it should be? The day the tortle's parents found him crying in pain and tearing at his skin to distract himself from a memory so distant and yet so real? Or Milo, who became a priest, not to follow in the light of the Dawnfather (like his parents may have thought), but to mock his brother even as a mortal?

These gods spent entire childhoods with families and friends, taking refuge from the skirmishes caused by their other siblings. Who, despite those similarities, have very different opinions of humanity, of Aeor, and themselves.

[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.

[aeruthien]

"When will your time be served? When will your debt be paid?"

Keyleth keeps thinking about Vax being indebted to the Matron. And that makes sense, because it is a way to explain why he left her. If he had no choice, there is no reason to blame him, and instead she can blame the Matron for keeping him away.

Except I don't think Vax is still indebted to the Matron, at least not in the way that Keyleth is implying. Vax wilfully followed his God. He wilfully upheld the things the Matron stands for - one of them accepting death as part of life, even his own.

How can Vax allow himself to be saved? How can he do that and not revoke anything he has learned to accept through worshipping the Matron?

Keyleth has to accept that it was Vax's choice. That is wasn't the Matron who killed him, but Vecna, and that Vax was not willing to be resurrected.

So she can finally be angry with Vax. So she can finally be angry with the situation. And so she can finally start to heal.

[thisisnotthenerd]

a list of things we learned from the matron of ravens in this episode of bell's hells:

for her:

she has a greater awareness as a god, but can't tell what's going to happen in the future. the threads are tangled, and whatever cuts the gordian knot will guide the way to the future.

she and the arch heart are preventing calamity 2: electric boogaloo by refusing to knock down the divine gate and act.

some threads are beyond her reach, especially those who are tied to different realms or those who have artificially extended their lifespans.

in this moment of moments, after proving themselves capable of doing what must be done, bell's hells have seen the original face of the lady of death and lived to tell the tale. the face of a woman who believed in the impossible.

she has granted her aid in the form of her mask, which will call for all that she can muster.

for the people:

opal is on the ground at the hellcatch, serving as the hand of the spider queen there, likely alongside fy'ra rai.

chetney is soon to die, but not quite yet.

vax suffers in the orb, but can be taken out if the beacon is removed and the key destroyed. he was the last thing to surprise her in recent history. take me instead, you raven bitch.

laudna fell out of her realm via the machinations of delilah, but through love, through faith in imogen, in bell's hells, in herself, she is returning to the matron's realm of fate. whether she will be alive again is up to time and the decisions she makes.

she believes that love and faith will be what enables the ruidusborn to contain predathos as vessels. love and faith bolstering will.

the ritual:

the ritual of seeding took the aid of the previous god of death.

she first reached for a taste of divinity and met him.

she became a disciple and learned from him the magics of death.

they became friends, seeking the secrets of the universe and what lies beyond the coil both mortal and divine.

she performed the ritual as an act of love, of taking on the burden that fell to him as the one who looked to the void as what the gods were left from tengar.

in that moment, she who was a mortal wizard, a loving being who sought the impossible both for its own sake and its role in extending her love and faith

became the matron of ravens, she who presides over fate and death, who stewards souls to the beyond and weaves the tapestry of time with ever-changing threads.

[undead-knick-knack]

[shorthaltsjester]

The Pantheon of Exandria;

"One thing, Dad. [Mortals] don't fear you, they resent you."

No Children by The Mountain Goats // Critical Role: Campaigns 1 and 3, Critical Role's Downfall

[twinklestarss]

“The history of Exandria is altered in the wake of great and terrible people touched by the will of the gods. Prove to me why you feel you are worthy to be among them. Right now? Feels a little braggy, doesn't it?”-The Matron of Ravens/Imogen

Campaign 3 Episode 109: A Test of Fate

[gorgynei]

how long before you have to go?

[smilelikeawolf]

Ioun: "The only way to protect this world is to step away from it and seal the door behind us."

The Matron: "This is the only home I've ever known."

Melora: "This was ours. We, we... no! No!"

Erathis: "Look how far they came, my love. They almost overtook us by force."

The Matron: "If we do this it protects them from the others as well."

Pelor: "We protect them."

Erathis: "Do we? Look at what you've wrought, Dawnfather."

The Matron: "I have ushered many souls this day."

Erathis: "We killed them for being good. My heart is tired."

[theshatteredsilhouette]

Lament for Vax’ildan

This is genuinely one of my favourite pieces I’ve ever done and I’m still not over it. I love Vax and his story so much, and I wanted to capture a bit of the eeriness of being a token of a god.

Prints here!

✨inspired by Lament for Icarus by Herbert James Draper

✨painted in procreate on ipad pro/do not repost

[soath]

the distant, wispy, all-knowing voice of the raven queen over vax's shoulder: the night...... is yours...... have fun, kids.... make sure.... to use protection..... be safe