#or if travis or sam would do it

[cringefaecompilation]

also rewatched the c3 wrap-up and now i'm curious. we're 0/5 with ashley, marisha, imogen, liam, and taliesin:

[shorthaltsjester]

watching the sdcc panel and i am just very :) about how sweet their answers to “what are some of the micro moments from the game that have stuck with you the most over the years?” are. taliesin saying what the fuck is up with that which was the first like The Party Gets To Know Each Other moments of c3. travis saying asking his wife if he could kiss her in campaign. marisha going way back to the cannonball competition in campaign one. ashley choosing the beauyasha date but also just the silly goat noise matt made. liam adding onto that to compliment matt roleplaying grass so well and then saying his favourite moment was writing a story for laura and reading it to her as caleb for jester. and then matt saying that was his answer, and that his favourite moments of the game are when they find ways to give gifts to each other whether tangible or not. and sam saying his favourite moments have less to do with the story and is more so when he can just. see his friends across the table from him. when marisha perches and when laura and ashley are (badly) drawing dicks and liam saying he loves when sam sneezes and ashley tells him to stop it and just. yeah. they Are an extremely popular online powerhouse, but i’m so happy that they’re also friends building a world together out of gifts to and love for one another.

like i Am so enamoured with the characters and the world of exandria but the moments when you can feel the love that those people have for each other reach out from behind the stained glass of their performances (to steal a metaphor from brennan lee mulligan) are so extremely special and i am endlessly grateful that they decided to share their silly little home game with the world.

[danwhobrowses]

Since Critical Role's big endgame battle has begun (as of ep. 113) and looks to give us a fair handful of Lv. 20 combat across the board with VM and later the Nein - and also since the Omen Archive are yet to do a level up overview for Bell's Hells to Lv. 15 like I expected them to do after ep. 112 - I find myself optimistically and curiously wondering how Bells Hells would shape up should they reach Lv. 20.

Admittedly, I do remain worried about how underleveled they are; I know it's intended since the Hells are the 'underdogs not meant to be in this position' group but still, for comparison Essek debuted at Lv. 15 in C2 and Vox Machina ended their campaign at Lv. 18 when the stakes were slightly lower than what we have with Ludinus, the Vanguard, the Imperium, and Predathos. Still, with nothing we can do but pray they make it out alive - and I hope they do - I've decided to indulge that rare bout of optimism and deep dive into what would their Lv. 20 state look like? While also considering what they may add during this final arc should they level up in between like they did the last time they were on Ruidus.

We're gonna go through each character one by one for this, so I'll start with my favourite (aka the one I wanna talk/ramble the most about).

Ashton is perhaps the easiest endgame build to tell class-wise, it's likely Tal will have them go the full 20 since Grog has already done the Fighter dip and there's not many other multiclasses that can be of a greater benefit to them; the intrigue however with Ashton focuses on the ASI they get at levels 16 and 19, the first one particularly if there's still a level up mid-battle. The obvious route for the first ASI is to get back the CON they lost in the shard incident - which I still find an unfair penalty since they gained nothing from surviving the bold and deemed impossible action, 'your reward is you get to live' doesn't stick with me given that the 10 rolls (well, 9 plus the resurrection ring) are proof of survival anyway - and absorbing Dusk Hunger sadly didn't give back, adding to their DEX instead - which, also kinda stubborn of Matt, adding 1 AC isn't exactly worthy of absorbing a legendary item especially compared to what Orym got with Ishta, they were better off trying to dual wield it if Matt's not gonna give stats that'll suit Ashton's wheelhouse, STR and CON, and let the tank be a tank - so it will likely fall into Tal's hands to get Ashton's stats to where they want them to be. Either way, Ashton's STR and CON are going up if they hit Lv. 20 as pure Barbarian, Primal Champion adds 4 to both and increases their max to 24, so without ASI Ashton will have 22 STR and 20 CON by Lv. 20 anyway, with ASI however Ashton can go 24/22 in either direction - and we can't rule out more absorption in the future, since Legendary loot may be yielded from this endgame battle plus Otohan's Backpack, Zathuda's storage cloak and maybe any other armour from the two could be Legendary items just gathering dust among the group, but if Ashton were to take any of them they'd have to wait a day since the Harness only grants 1 permanent and 1 temporary buff per person, and each person who uses it on the same day risks it breaking by 20%. However, we also can't rule out Ashton taking a feat instead of ASI, it's a slim chance but there are some feats that can be of use for Ashton in general or specifically vs Ludinus; Mage Slayer, Strike of the Giants (Hill or Stone Strike, of the two I'd go for Hill because of it causing the prone condition, which will help Ashton and allies, like Orym with that 1d6 extra Force Damage, stack critical damage), and Great Weapon Master could be powerful if they don't focus on ASI. The Tough feat is always good for being tanky too, but such a feat would likely only be used at the Lv. 19 ASI/Feat domain to get the most out of it. The only other places Ashton can get major potential buffs - outside of any new enchanted items that aren't armour - are from Dunamancy and their Titan powers, but neither have provided a clear opening for improvement as of yet. Ashton hit their final Dunamancy path at Lv. 14, where they got Mark of the Messy End (which compared to Essek getting access to stuff like Reality Break doesn't seem to balance out but I guess Wizards are glass cannons so Dunamancy does more with them), but there is a quiet, lingering mystery over how Potions of Possibility and Luxon Beacons will behave if Ashton and their Dunamancy brain interacts with them, given how they have many potions on hand, in general and gifted to them by the Kryn Dynasty before they met with the Nein, and Ludinus using Luxon Beacons as power sources, there is potential for Ashton's Dunamancy to increase that way - or simply through Matt adding an extra Dunamancy path in place of an ASI/Feat, a Dunamancy-based feat, or swapping Primal Champion with something else. The Titan Form could also improve by level, and I kinda hope it does, it's powerful but given the time limit and Exhaustion it's still below the level of Grog's Titanstone Knuckles in terms of utility, if more power or less limitations are imposed the higher their level it could scale Ashton up further in a similar manner to having a Vestige or, in Orym's case, a Relic of the Red Solstice.

Speaking of Orym, you'd assume that he'll also go for the clean 20, but this is Liam O'Brien we're talking about - he gave Vax a Druid level for his love of Keyleth, so you can't put it past him to add a level in Bard for Dorian. Like Ashton, Orym has 2 ASI waiting for him at levels 16 and 19, due to maxing his DEX - and absorbing Ishta overclocking it (a DEX increase that actually makes sense as a Finesse blade Fighter, adding +1 to AC and attack rolls and a higher DC for enemies to save against superiority die attacks) - Orym has already dipped into feats a lot but could always find room for more. Great Weapon Master, Shield Master, Mage Slayer, and Tough again at level 19 are viable options for Orym and his build, but there's also a unique option of, instead of taking a level in Bard, Magic Initiate: Bard in lieu of Dorian; taking the feat lets him gain the 4th attack Lv. 20 Fighter yields while adding some handy Bard magic such as Friends, Thunderwave, Command, Bane or Cure Wounds - all of which are Level 1 Bard spells. While adding a level in Bard would be a nice gesture, the Magic Initiate feat would probably work better for Orym's build if he wanted to reference his connection to Dorian this way, since he doesn't need 4 extra 1st level spells and he already has a lot of proficiencies and bonuses to cover his rolls anyway, plus he still carries the sending stone if he doesn't want to do either. If he went for ASI, Orym could try to rival Ayden's passive perception by buffing his WIS, but I doubt anybody would hold it against him to be less perceptive than a god. Regardless of ASI and feats, a pure 20 in Fighter does up Orym's lethality immensely, getting a potential 12 attacks with two Action Surges - the second gained in Lv. 17 - in one round (16 attacks if hastened and 17 if hastened and a Time Rage Mark of the Messy End - which I believe allows you to attack with Bonus Actions - is used on an enemy), which would make him an extra efficient killer and protector for combat, which suits his character as well. While multiclassing is an uncommon trait to reference a partner, in Orym's case it's probably moreso cute but unnecessary flavouring.

Adding an element of their partner into their build is something Imogen has done already with decent effect, however. Imogen is another pure 20 likelihood; she has 2 ASI, a Metamagic choice, her final Origin Feature - Warping Implosion: essentially you teleport and anyone within 30 feet will be caught in a gravity fissure - and Sorcerous Restoration - 4 sorcery points restored per short rest - waiting for her at the full 20. As alluded, she already has Laudna influences in the Shadow Touched feat and a vial of her blood in her equipment so she needn't use a feat or a multiclass in further reference to her, which means it comes down to what options she chooses for her ASI/Feats and future skills. With her CHA maxed out already, the two ASI would need to go elsewhere or to feats; War Caster could be used to help her concentration spells, such as the reskinned Hunger of Hadar, Telekinesis, and Investiture of Lightning, unused spells such as her mother's Reverse Gravity, Hold Person, or Globe of Invulnerability, or future 8th-9th level spells such as Dominate Monster, Gate, and Mass Polymorph (turn them all into horses!). Otherwise using one of those ASI to add 1 to INT and WIS will add to saving throws of those stats (+1 for INT and +2 for WIS), she can also remove all her stat negatives by adding an ASI to her STR in place of a feat. Imogen also has options with choosing a final Metamagic from Sorcerer; she has Quickened, Distant, and Twinned Spell already, so the next one needs to also be helpful in combat; the potential of Extended and Transmuted Spell are decent, but Heightened Spell may be the best fit for her - spending 3 Sorcery points to impose disadvantage on a spell save can be very useful when using Imogen's spells such as Psychic Lance, especially against powerful magic users like Ludinus. Going a little extra meta with things, Imogen at Lv. 20 is only going to exist in one-shots or guest appearances - which means short rests aren't likely to faze her as much, also recovering 4 out of a total of 20 Sorcery Points per short rest isn't a lot when you get all of them back after a Long Rest. If Imogen were to pull a swerve and multiclass she could simply sacrifice an ASI for an 18/2 split or just take a 19/1 dip without it doing any negative effect to her current build. Of the multiclassing options, I find that the Tempest Cleric could gel pretty well with her build; connecting her lightning magic and her storm analogies (and her attempt to reach out to the Stormlord) from a narrative perspective, while combat-wise she'd get to use Wrath of the Storm to damage anyone that attacks her (as many times as her WIS, so 1-3 depending on her ASI usage) and, if she goes for the 18/2 split, she can use the class' Channel Divinity to max out a spell's lightning damage - which if used on a 9th Level Lightning Bolt is 76 damage without enhancements! - she also gets some minor healing to add to her repertoire, and with a group without a pure Cleric you can't really have a shortage of players who can heal even if it's a little bit. I can't see any other dip doing her as much benefit, so the full 20 is more likely, even if the maxed out Lightning Bolt would work wonders.

You know who also knows Lightning Bolt? Well, a fair amount of players and NPCs but also Dorian! Let's talk our Boy in Blue - no I did not say 'Blue in Boy' in my head when typing, shush! - he's our last PC likely to be a pure 20 of the group, also because the rest have already multiclassed, but like Imogen there is also the opening for a little bit of multiclassing. The ASI in levels 16 and 19 are probably best put into maxing his CHA stat that's currently at 16, DEX could also go up to 20 for additional Gambolcleft damage but the sword is pretty powerful as it is - it depends if Robbie wants Dorian to focus on Spell or Melee output for stats, but casting is probably the better way to go. Not many feats would help Dorian outside of maybe Tough and War Caster, perhaps Slasher but they do seem like minor additions he can go without, so ASI is likely the best route to take for him. Unlike with Orym where a dip in Bard wouldn't do much good mechanically, Dorian could easily take a dip in Fighter and have it be a solid investment; the Bard's Lv. 20 ability Superior Inspiration only helps if you've used up all of your Inspiration, and as said with Imogen that probably won't come up in a one-shot scenario where Lv. 20 Dorian would likely appear, but by Lv. 19 he will already have added spells from any magic class via his final dip into Magical Secrets - and honestly I have no clue what one he could take because like, all of the spells! Wish is probably the go-to one but Dorian doesn't want anything from the gods so maybe not? - and he'll already have a 9th level spell slot from earlier levels. A 1-level dip in Fighter can give Dorian Second Wind for some self-healing and another Fighting Style to choose from: either Superior Technique - like Orym has - or Duelist would suit best, and if Robbie sacrifices an ASI he can go up to a 2nd level for Action Surge, which is handy should he focus on melee. There aren't many other 1-level dips that would suit Dorian narratively, there was probably Warlock potential in EXU: Prime when the crown was in play but since, again, the group lacks a pure healer, Dorian is probably better off investing his stats and skills towards Bard spells - which in turn bolsters DPS as well as healing.

From one Bard/DPS healer to another, Braius debuted with some pretty high stats to begin with, with only WIS being a negative modifier. As a 12/3 multiclass he can go a few different directions - much like his character arc and selection of deity - but it leaves him at a crossroads - also like his character arc. The 12 levels in Oath of the Ancients Paladin means he's locked out of getting Bard's Magical Secrets, if he maxes out his remaining levels in Bard he gets 2 ASI, a College of Tragedy feature (make crits be at rolls 18, 19 and 20 after an ally is hit with a crit plus a '+10 on a roll but a -10 penalty on the next' skill), Countercharm, and his Bardic Inspiration dice will go up to 1d8, but all of those are kinda covered by Dorian's higher level Bard class and Ashton's Mark of the Messy End while in Luck Rage to a higher or better extent. The 3 levels in Bard however has locked Braius out of Paladin's Aura improvements and the big Elder Champion buff, which is a big loss, if maxed out in Paladin they'll get Cleansing Touch - end a spell on yourself or anyone you can touch as many times as your CHA, one ASI, a 5th level spell slot (handy for Banishing Smite, Circle of Power, Destructive Wave, and Summon Celestial), and Undying Sentinel - which is just a once-a-long-rest Relentless Rage with no CON save. Build-wise, it would be best for Braius to go one of three different paths; either go for a 15/5 split - so no 5th level spell but he gets 1 ASI, Undying Sentinel, and Font of Inspiration for the 1d8 inspiration - a 14/6 split - where we swap Undying Sentinel for the college feature, or go the unique path and add a third class - while the 5th level spell slot has powerful spells Braius' combat is much more melee-based so it is a less likely option. A 14/3/3 triple split sacrifices his ASI/feats but 3 levels in Fighter gives him another Fighting Style, Action Surge, Second Wind, and a Fighter subclass to add to his combat prowess. One unlikely Fighter subclass that could suit Braius is the Rune Knight; with 3 levels Braius will have access to 2 runes, which can be tied to his character's artistry, to add to his gear - the Fire and Cloud Runes being the most useful to him from what I see - they would also get Giant's Might as a skill for an extra 1d6 of damage once per turn. Fighter isn't the only class Braius can benefit from though; he would only need to dip 2 levels in Cleric or Druid to gain their subclass-based abilities; a Shepherd Druid would give the group a slight benefit with the Hawk Spirit skill, using a reaction to attack with advantage and having advantage on perception checks, but similar to Imogen he'd probably benefit a bit more from dipping into Cleric - particularly Grave, War, Ambition, and Peace Domain Clerics, who each have abilities that can further empower him. A dip in Barbarian would be handy for Danger Sense - not so much Rage because you can't use spells - maybe opting for the Zealot path subclass, which also suits narratively, for an extra 1d6 damage, or a dip in the Monster Hunter Ranger to aid in picking out weaknesses. A 12/4/4 split could also work, forgoing Cleansing Touch to grant Braius 2 ASI or feats if Sam wanted them; with that they can balance their WIS to 10 and then max out their CHA and another +1 elsewhere, or just do a feat like Fey Touched - since he was touched plenty by a Fey Hag all across her manor - to max the CHA and gain a spell like Hunter's Mark to aid in combat.

Speaking of Hunters, Chetney may not have been designed to survive the campaign but with Travis rolling the fatal 0 when playing as Grog that old man is still, somehow, kicking. If Travis doesn't pull a Bertrand and allows him to continue defying the odds and live to Lv. 20, Chetney would be in a similar position to Braius - having gone the Tealeaf route and locked himself out of the full 20 in Blood Hunter by having a dip in Rogue - in being in a crossroads of classes. If he invests his remaining levels in Blood Hunter to 19, he still gets a lot from the class; 2 Order Features (advantages on bloodlust saving throws and on any branded creature, then unlimited hybrid transformations on the next feature), 2 ASI, and an extra Blood Maledict. Chetney's 1-level dip in Rogue however means he could also invest into any Rogue subclass for a 17/3 split (or a 16/4 split if he sacrifices a Blood Maledict for 2 ASI over one) instead; Assassin would help his damage output especially since he likes going Invisible, but the Revived subclass would be funny implying that he died but miraculously came back and no longer needed to risk dying in his sleep because he doesn't need to sleep anymore. Chet could also triple class like we suggested with Braius; 3-5 levels in Artificer - since he's a toymaker his toys can be infused beyond the enchanted distractions, going for the Armorer subclass can also be handy for the Thunder Gauntlets ability too, 2 levels in Fighter - for Action Surge, 2-4 levels in Monk - which has decent potential if his chisel is made a dedicated weapon plus the possible boons from Kensei, Mercy, or Open Hand paths, or even 3 levels in Ranger - where Hunter, Gloom Stalker, and Monster Slayer subclasses each have skills that could help Chet in combat, can all be seen as options, but it can also run the risk of being overcomplicated. Despite a Feat sidestepping Chet losing control in his Hybrid Form, logic says that Chet would likely stick with the 19/1 route since the feat only imposes a disadvantage against losing control and he can still do collateral damage, character-wise he'd likely want to keep his Lycanthropy on lock as much as he can. Plus, going to 19 Blood Hunter levels yields unlimited transformations and the second ASI hits at Lv. 19; with the two ASI - which he cannot get from triple classing - he can max out his STR and buff up his CON, DEX, and/or CHA for any additional bonuses, he has no negative stats so any are fair game. I don't see any feats that'd be too helpful, but outside of AC or DC boosts from increasing CON or DEX, upping CHA could also help with persuasion and being persuasive and tricksy.

Persuasive and Tricksy are some of many words you can use to define Fearne, who is also a Rogue multiclass. Her current 10/5 with Wildfire Druid as the majority allows her some wiggle room for her to go a few different directions. The 5 levels in Rogue have locked her out of a second ASI in Druid, the timeless body (not really a big deal for a fey), additional Wild Shape perks, and the 9th Level Spell Slot though, but if she invests only into Druid levels for the full 15 she does still gain one ASI and her Wildfire Feature 'Blazing Revival' - where once per long rest Mister can sacrifice himself (I don't think it's a permadeath sacrifice just like an 'off the board until resummoned' sacrifice) to revive her to half HP if she's downed - alongside a 6th, 7th and 8th level spell slot. If she goes for an even spread of 10 levels each with Rogue's Arcane Trickster however, she gains 2 ASI, 2 more proficiencies, Evasion, Magical Ambush, and a few more lower level spells. Both have valid directions - and as much as Fearne is a 'collector' I think a third class probably won't suit her and will perplex Ashley further - for her character even with mixing the level splits; a 12/8 split will grant her 2 ASI and a 6th level spell slot, while a 14/6 split grants one ASI, a 6th and 7th level spell slot, the Blazing Revival, and 2 proficiencies. Since Fearne doesn't do many sneak attacks and uses her Rogue abilities more for pickpocketing, it would probably be sensible to lean more towards Druid; a 15/5 split if she wants that 8th level spell slot for Sunburst, Incendiary Cloud, or Feeblemind, but a 14/6 split if she can do without - Plane Shift could narratively be on her radar so she can travel to the Feywild as she pleases, but Fire Storm is still a mighty 7th level spell that can be additionally buffed by her titan form which as mentioned with Ashton could also potentially scale up with levels - would give her more stuff to work with, plus extra Druid Levels buffs up Mister's health so he could be looking at 75-80 total HP (5+(Druid Level x 5)) depending on whether Fearne goes level 14 or 15. Since Fearne took War Caster already from her last level and her WIS is already maxed out, ASI to CON could be looked into to add health, AC, and DC, while also improving her chances at holding concentration for her saving throws, alternatively she can up her DEX to improve her pickpocketing so she can finally claim one of those eggs, since she's tragically 0-2 on that. Feat-wise, there is still the Elemental Adept: Fire feat to bypass enemy resistances to Fire too, lots of enemies will have Fire Resistance after all, so if she doesn't want to use ASI there is still that to use it on. So level-wise there is some wiggle room but class-wise she is better off picking one to focus on.

Our final member of the Hells Laudna has already picked her focused class; on a 12/3 Sorlock with her patron bound to a soul anchor - get fucked Delilah - she has implied to go pure Sorcerer from herein. Marisha has previously stated that she saw no gain in any more Warlock levels even when Delilah was still active and while a 6th level in Warlock would grant her an ASI at Lv.4 and unlocks Grave Touched - change damage to Necrotic plus 1 extra damage die when in Form of Dread, which is pretty solid - it does indeed suit narratively for Laudna to avoid more Warlock levels. The 3 levels she has gained from Warlock though have (war)locked her out of her final Sorcery feature of Umbral Form - which would've made her resistant to everything but Force and Radiant Damage, so like Braius' Primal Champion it's quite the loss - but she still looks to get Shadow Walk which aids her mobility, providing that there's darkness or shadows in the vicinity, as well as one ASI and another Metamagic option by continuing the Sorcerer's path, not to mention a dangerous 9th level spell slot. Unlike Imogen, Laudna opted for Empowered Spell in her current Metamagics alongside Quickened and Twinned, doing Heightened or Transmuted probably wouldn't suit Laudna like it does her partner though. Instead, Careful Spell could be a good choice for Laudna since her CHA is maxed out, so she could pick 5 creatures to auto-succeed a saving throw to a spell she sends, but since she doesn't have many AoE spells Extended Spell may be the better fit to keep up concentration on spells like Animate Objects, Mirror Image, or any future powerful concentration spells she'll have access to like Eyebite, Globe of Invulnerability, Reverse Gravity, or Blade of Disaster - which Delilah used pretty effectively in Aeor - ongoing. Even so, the one ASI remains; the Amulet of Health puts her CON to a fixed 19 so if she added one CON it'd be 16 without attunement, which is still pretty good but worthless if she just keeps using the amulet, she could put +1 in her woeful STR so it's a -2 rather than -3, or opt for feats such as War Caster - for those powerful concentration spells - or another Eldritch Invocation with Eldritch Adept, such as Armor of Shadows or Eldritch Spear, which may be more fitting for her fun scary nature.

And that's all of them, for a TL/DR I expect Ashton, Orym, Dorian and Imogen to do the pure 20 for their classes, while Chetney will go 19/1, Braius and Fearne go 14/6, and Laudna goes 17/3. But if it were me, the only ones I'd adjust from those would be Dorian (19/1, adding Fighter), Imogen (18/2, adding Tempest Cleric), and Braius (14/3/3, adding Rune Knight Fighter) just from a meta/fun perspective. Either way I'll just be happy to see them make Level 20, so fingers and every other digit I have stay crossed for whichever route they choose.

[mostlygibberish]

Oh yeah, I somehow finished Critical Role campaign one. Only took like, literally years.

[your-enby-antihero]

based on the 4 sided dive escape room question here is my take:

Liam’s PCs- Yes 100% they would escape not only because of their skill sets but also all of them are very team oriented. They would all work well together, getting out at record time and it would be a good experience for all of them they’d be friends upon escape.

Laura’s PCs- No only because they would do really well at the start but eventually Jester would get distracted and start to annoy Vex then it would devolve into following a red herring until time runs out. They would have a good time though, but it is contentious if they come out of the room friends.

Marisha’s PCs- Yes they could do it purely based on the fact that I think Beau could pull the team together. Her competitive energy would get Keyleth and Laudna fired up and they would get out. They would have a decent time (Beau might get intense) but they’d come out friends.

Ashely’s PCs- No they would not get out of the escape room. Yasha wouldn’t get the point of the activity, Pike would eventually get frustrated and she would have to be stopped so she wouldn’t smash stuff, Fearne would try to take the set dress. They would not even get past the first room but they’d come out friends.

Travis’ PCs-No I don’t believe they could purely because Grog as best as he would try he would be much help, Bertrand Bell and Chetney would have beef on who is in charge and Chetney snuck in a real knife, Fjord is low key a push over so despite him probably being good enough at doing the puzzles but he doesn’t speak up. They would not get out and Chetney would kill someone.

Taliesin’s PCs- I think they’d get out. With the amount of obscure knowledge and a general intelligence they could get out in the nick of time. However they would not be friends at the end of the escape. Percy and Ashton and Molly would all end up yelling and insulting each other. Kingsley and Caduceus would chill but Kingsley would be laughing so fucking hard at the end. They would get out but they’d kill each other if it happened again.

Sam’s PCs-They could do it, but it would depend on if Veth/Nott got distracted or not. If she figured it out they would be fine but let’s be real FCG and Tary would be just a little useless despite genuine effort. Scanlan would help but I think he’d be kind of a dick about it. They would get out but not end up being besties after very neutral.

[utilitycaster]

can you explain what you mesn by monkey ladder in reference to the CR fandom? as someone from C1 i would probably be able to give you the insight you asked for in your tags but im unsure of the angle you are coming from.

Oh yeah, it describes a phenomenon I've repeatedly seen in all aspects of my life but I wasn't aware there was an idiom for it. Basically, it describes how communities/institutions continue following patterns of behavior even when said behaviors are in response to a no-longer relevant problem and even when the people who originated said behaviors and remember the original reason are gone.

So: imagine an experiment with five monkeys, a ladder, and bananas on top of the ladder. Whenever a monkey goes for the ladder to reach the bananas, a researcher sprays all the monkeys with ice water. After enough attempts, the monkeys, understandably, begin attacking any one of them that reaches for the ladder in order to avoid this punishment.

The researchers then swap out one of the monkeys for a new monkey. When the new monkey reaches for the ladder, the other monkeys attack them and prevent them from reaching it.

They then swap out another monkey, and when the second new monkey reaches for the ladder, not only do the other monkeys attack them - the first "new" monkey joins in. And so on. Eventually, you can reach a point where all five monkeys in the room have never even been sprayed with ice water. They don't know why they are attacking people who reach for the ladder other than that they were attacked for reaching for the ladder. And here's the kicker: the researchers haven't sprayed anyone in ages, and actually, they've turned off the water, and if someone reached for the ladder, they'd be fine. But they won't.

So it's about groups enforcing behaviors that arose in response to something specific that is no longer present, even after the group no longer recalls, necessarily, why it was present.

Anyway: as someone with the specific experience of watching campaign 1 and early campaign 2 concurrently, having started with Campaign 2, ie, joined the fandom in Campaign 2 and have been here ever since, the following viewpoints are all imo "monkey-ladder" problems: people carrying forward stereotypes/fandom behaviors that I think originated in Campaign 1 but which many new fans never actually experienced:

specifically the one I mentioned in my previous post - the idea that Sam and Travis make stupid joke characters and aren't taking this seriously. (This sometimes splits into Sam Makes Dumb Joke Characters And Travis Is Himself A Stupid Person. The latter has fortunately abated but it was still alive and kicking as late as early C3)

The idea that Marisha and Laura; or Taliesin and Liam, make characters with exceptional romantic chemistry with each other. (They didn't have this in C1 either; while chemistry is obviously a subjective metric I find these specifically two of the weakest cases of cast romantic chemistry and definitely the two weakest of same gender cast romantic chemistry but they were held up as the only viable PC/PC queer romances given that Ashley was often absent, Grog wasn't interested, and people wrote off Scanlan as a dumb joke and Tary came around after Percy and Vex were already together)

Any criticism of Marisha is Forbidden Forever due to the harassment she received in C1 (we got monkeys who joined the fandom mid-C3 beating up people who were like I'm Not Vibing With Laudna who had been staunch Keyleth defenders during the actual run of C1, for example)

I'm sure there's others that aren't coming to mind but this is a good starting point: basically, it's people who weren't in the fandom in C1 and might not even have seen Campaign 1 carrying over opinions that really only made sense in Campaign 1 and honestly weren't even good then.

For a fun interrogation of this (carryover of an opinion/behavior with no other reason than This Is What I Was Told When I Joined) within the context of an actual play, see Iga Lisowski in The Unsleeping City 2.

[pocketgalaxies]

hello from the past (sunday december 8)! in lieu of my normal friday liveblog here are some things i remember from the daggerheart critmas show in no particular order :)

Uncle Pelvis

riley, full eldritch reindeer monster, just Sobbing about her pet rat which she named gorbachev because her dad calls the actual gorbachev a rat bastard

laura miming her stupid lil candlestick hands and wiggling her stupid lil mesh wings the entire time

marisha getting out of her chair yelling "MY SKATEBOARD–IT'S ROLLING DOWN THE STREET"

the whole audience watching matt's "how to watch daggerheart" video before the show started with utmost rapt attention as if it was new information

"put it in your frigid box" "my body is ready"

"SLIPPERY WHEN WET, BITCH"

slippery when wet bitch made me so happy because it's such a marisha-ism that i pulled out my phone to put it in my tumblr drafts so i wouldn't forget it. it's the only thing i wrote down the whole show

marisha and ashley miming riley sticking her arm into gwenny's body

bethany insulting ralph and ralph sobbing "i thought tristan was just gonna read a dramatic monologue"

every time someone started crying gwenny's hands would creep into frame holding the box

the holiday spirit going "...~whoa~" from tanner's weed grenade

ralph bader ginsburg

bethany's very not secret comic book obsession

"how do you know i was the one who tagged the water tower" "it says dylan right there"

laura going "i still can't believe you all said i was naughty" and travis' thumbs up

everyone going "DIDN'T YOU LIVE IN GERMANY?" and marisha going "YES AND I'VE USED MY EXPERIENCE 'I LIVED OVERSEAS' 4 TIMES ALREADY"

marisha going "we're still rolling even though we had two crits. ok,"

everyone looking at travis' monkey hat and breaking

bethany checking if her vag was still there

gwenny inexplicably knowing everything about everyone's lives and houses

one half of the party crying into a box and the other half getting violently disemboweled by an evil hag

the way bethany said ". no–!" when ralph asked if they had a chance together

bethany's lil tantrums

ralph throwing his own lil tantrum and saying "i learned from the best"

laura trying to use an experience talking to the holiday spirit and muttering "no they wouldn't care who my dad is..."

riley intensely saying "i know where it went. follow me." and then comically slipping on ice with her ungraceful bambi legs

marisha going "matt What did you say you said it so fast and i was so distracted" and matt just repeating back a bunch of german

tristan's illusory pack of krampus monsters all having a little tree topper sitting on one horn

the audience laughing at Every single one of sam's jewish jokes despite ourselves

i can't remember what the context was anymore but taliesin just deadpanning "This Was A Mistake." over all the cry-laughter which only made the cry-laughter more severe

i kept looking at a mom in the row in front of me who definitely only came to support her child and she just looked so confused the whole time. confused for 5 hours straight. i'm so sorry mom

riley screaming "IT'S THE COMMIES" and immediately offering up gwenny because "she's a virgin" and gwenny, 3 beats too late, defensively going "I HAVE SEX ALL THE TIME"

the VIPs doing the little sing-songy thing and the whole cast going "what the fuck you creeps"

sam skipping onto the stage like an angelic little boy when momlan finally announced him

ashley's court jester look in the 2nd half was very cute

someone behind me said "she is so cute" about laura's tree topper outfit, apropos of nothing. relatable

i think nobody in the audience was expecting the character art of their transformations and it was absolutely an involuntary gasp and yell when riley's first appeared. and when marisha described the christmas lights appearing on her antlers like 3 ppl around me including myself went "oh cool"

everyone losing their FUCKING minds when liam did the hamlet monologue

everyone losing their FUCKING minds when liam did the breakfast club monologue

a high schooler robbing the comic store and getting ambushed by a bunch of fairytale monstrosities who are actually also just high schoolers

the concept of a tiny tree topper being able to step in front of someone to take the hit for them. and the fact that every time she did it the crowd went "AWWWW."

tanner's intrusive monkey noises

matt repeatedly saying "it doesn't matter if you rolled with hope or fear on a reaction roll" and marisha going "You Know We're Going To Say It Anyway. I Rolled A 15. With Hope."

liam saying that the hair on his calves specifically was contributing to his armor

marisha trying to do math in front of a crowd of thousands, marisha spitting all over her mic in front of a crowd of thousands, ashley not being able to read her dice in front of a crowd of thousands, laura trying to choose dice in front of a crowd of thousands

sam feeling the need to clarify that his acne was just makeup. the details of the makeup not rly showing up on the screen so it definitely just looked like a rash and i felt a non-negligible amount of relief when he made said clarification

every time gwenny went anywhere it was described as "rolling." like bb-8

gwenny going "hey this kind of isn't so bad" and ralph immediately going "you're going to melt in the summer"

every time they were so teenager-y. "my dad said this" "suck it" "chode"

ralph going "i had my bat mitzvah so i'm a man now, not a child. so this doesn't apply to me" and tristan going "and tanner's 22"

trying to kill a mythical fire scarecrow monster but whenever anyone tries to do something strategic about it everyone goes "NO WAIT THE COMIC BOOKS–"

on a more serious note meeting cool ppl before the show and during intermission! everyone was wearing cozy cr merch it was so cute! there was a trinket with christmas lights and armor with a light-up VM logo! there was a fuckin awesome percy vex couple's cosplay! there were laudnas! there were keyleths! one person got told their bag was too big and everyone in line was offering tips on how to carry all the super cute caleb cosplay-related paraphernalia in their bag, everyone was so nerdy and friendly. the critmas album was playing during the pre-show and the atmosphere was so cute. so many ppl sang along to the twelve days of grogmas mv when it played during intermission. a whole crowd of grog impressions. and when marisha/riley said her stupid thing about how one day nerd culture might become cool and popular and everyone cheered it made me feel so warm and fuzzy.

ok i could keep going but i'll stop. it was such a fun fuckin time y'all

[quipxotic]

Matt: The colors in your mind shift... Fearne: Oh! Matt: From the blues and pinks of curious welcoming to a questioning yellow, and the seed has descended slightly toward you. You get the sense it wants to know why and what. Ashley: About the seed? Matt: [Nods] Fearne: D-d-do you like the seed? Do you want the seed? I can take the seed and we can go away forever. Matt: 'Why? What?' Fearne: Ashton, it kinda wants to know why you wanted to plant the seed here. Ashton: It's a friend [looks at Imogen] who wanted to explore. Fearne [moved]: Oh. Imogen: It was lonely. Fearne [reaching out to touch Imogen's shoulder]: Oh. I love all those things. Ashton: It was a friend who wanted to explore and see something else. Fearne: Um. Yeah, I'll say that. This is just a friend that's lonely and wants a home to explore. Would love to have a new home. Matt: Make a persuasion check. Ashley: [Makes a face] Sam: Persuade the mushroom. Travis: Aren't you really persuasive or is that deceptive? Ashley: I'm persuasive. Robbie: Don't make that face. Crush it. Liam: Roll a 20. Get your 20. Ashley: [Rolls and gawps at the result. Looks to Laura.] Laura: [Gasps] You did. Ashley: But- Laura: That's a 20! It's a 20 dude! Ashley: So that would mean...33. Marisha: Jesus Christ. Taliesin: What is happening? Robbie [Dancing in his seat, using jazz hands]: Good omen? Bad omen? Matt: One of the numerous alien consciousnesses that call Ruidus home. An entity that you can't begin to understand or grasp it's history, it's longevity, it's true capacity for knowledge or communication. But in this moment, this interconnected moment, you just speak from the mind of something that has known loneliness and convey that memory of your own as the bridge of understanding to this entity. And it seems that it understands very well what it means to be lonely. Ashley: Aw!

[thethreegoblins]

Taking the time to listen to the critmas album cuz I wanted to listen to it For Real for the first time and- obviously there's not a single one I don't like but

Jesus Christ. Long text below

Pumat for the first song was an unexpected choice but damn it's so fun silly.

Laura's Silent Mind. That's it, just Silent Mind.

I found Naughty & Nice very cute, I have no notes. It took me a second to picture Scanlan and not just Sam, it's a flavor of bit he's done so many times I can't separate the two, but if anything that just makes the gnome make that much more sense.

I have a playlist specifically for songs like Nothin' Under The Tree and I need more. Taliesin please. Glad Ashton adopted the Hells as their best friends to spend the holidays with, that's a high bar to clear.

O Mighty Nein had me dead on the first couple of lines, by the end I was just crying like a little bitch. I'm not immune to cat purrs and sung verses about Caleb's found family. "Fort, doch nicht vergessen."

Twelve Days Of Grogmas would be my favorite if everything else wasn't just.. gold. Everything is gold. I laugh at every PINTS OF ALE line, this song is just Joy.

And probs my favorite, Cold Inside. I need more singing Pâté, more Pâté threatening chet. More scenic hells bells songs. More Marisha singing, period. FCG sounds amazing, too, Chetney is very well written and made me realize Travis has a penchant for characters that trail off. And- Imogen istg. Did we just blow Chetney up into the sky like Mushu on Mulan? I'll be periodically searching for animatics for this one because it paints a Very good picture for every verse (and I'm not nearly talented enough to do it myself)

Was reveling on the Feelings that Cold Inside left behind just to be hit with Winter Anymore. Nothing like a sad sapphic ballad right after what will be in my mind the Imodna anthem. So an average sapphic musical number.

Y'all

DECK THE BEAR?

And.. I know this is parasocial as fuck but Critmas made me giddy and actually Like the holidays for a minute or two. A bit of it is that Christmas for the northern hemisphere is Very different here (we haven't seen snow in my hometown since I think 2009, and that was a weather outlier) and we don't really hear about the holidays unless they're very fkn cold and snowy, so this was a nice change of pace to me, I guess Critical Role Land isn't that much different from this town. Brings them closer to me, personally, envisioning flipflops, Santa on the beach, no snow to be found and yet the stockings hang and the Christmas trees are forever present. When family is hard at best, this kinda thing is difficult.

These people are coming for my marbles istg

Closing thoughts: it didn't even occur to me that this would be a season highlight, a critical role holiday record? I remember vividly that one ad read Sam did some time ago (was that in the pandemic? For DND beyond I think?) where everyone sang, I'm really happy somebody, anybody, in the team said "what if we Actually..." because they've given me (and I'm sure countless others) new music to love, by the people we love, and with the characters we are so very normal about.

[ag-updates-and-archives]

L.S. Dunes: “Making music together is an intimate relationship. We’re not f*cking, but we are giving each other all of our selves���

L.S. Dunes was never supposed to be a ‘proper band’ but, even by the prolific standards of its esteemed personnel, the post-hardcore collective have gathered unheralded momentum. Ahead of sublime second album Violet, we join vocalist Anthony Green and guitarist Frank Iero to find how what started out “low stress” has grown into a towering monument to positivity and hope…

January 15, 2025 Words: Sam Law Photography: Jonathan Weiner

L .S. Dunes’ abstract band name remains open to interpretation even within their five-strong gang. Back in 2022, explanations were offered on how these none-more-cultured musicians felt drawn to its rhythmic echo of the authors of great literary works: J.D. Salinger, W.B. Yeats, R.L. Stine… The imagery of shifting sands chimed with the realities of impermanence and change that weigh on men facing down middle-age. Even the ‘accidental monogram’ of LSD appealed: a drug for those looking to tap into their deeper consciousness, and to truly connect with the world around them.

Grabbing time with vocalist Anthony Green and guitarist Frank Iero to delve into imminent second album Violet six days before Christmas, however – a period when even the busiest players have called it quits for the year – we can’t help but wonder whether ‘L.S.’ still stands for ‘Low Stress’?

“Eh…” Anthony grins, knowingly. “The meaning of that name does change from time to time.”

Currently battling a sinus infection while in recovery from from a nasty norovirus at home in Doylestown, PA (“It was like a cycle from a scary movie. Your kid would have four days of pooping and throwing up, then three days later you would get it, too!”) the singer could be forgiven for eschewing press duties. Likewise, Frank is with family in New Jersey, relishing the calm before a jam-packed 2025 including a My Chemical Romance U.S. stadium tour whose 365,000 tickets recently sold out in a matter of hours. Neither man – nor bandmates Tim Payne and Tucker Rule of Thursday and Coheed And Cambria’s Travis Stever – need the project that was started as an easygoing distraction in the depths of lockdown. But the more of its mesmerising moments and glitteringly sincere sounds they unearth, the deeper they feel compelled to dig.

“It’s funny,” Frank picks up. “Anything that you do, that you really love and care about and put effort into, is going to come with some kind of stress at times. You’re gonna push yourself. You’re gonna want to expel extra energy into it. The biggest stress for this band is scheduling. Everyone is so busy and has so many things to do that it’s hard to make the touring and release schedules work. That can be stressful. But the important stuff – the creative side, making the music, enjoying the craft of being in a band – has never been stressful. That’s the easy part.”

“A certain amount of stress is good in any situation,” agrees Anthony. “It helps with growth. It draws focus to things that might need attention or care. But generally L.S. Dunes’ stress has to do with ‘outside stuff’ like planning or time. The inside stuff has always been right where it should be.”

Keeping track of every show they’ve ever played is many a musician’s dream but, predictably, Frank and Anthony have long since lost count. Both are surprised, all the same, to learn that L.S. Dunes have played over 100 shows between first hitting the stage at Riot Fest 2022 and today. Having insisted that this band is by no means a side-project, the proof is in those miles racked up.

“Anything worth doing is worth doing for real,” Frank grins. “But no-one is telling us to do it. None of us need to be away from our families. We’re driven by love for the music we’re making. Being a professional musician is a dream I’ve had since I was a kid. More people than I can count told me I how wasn’t good enough, or that it wasn’t going to work out. So to still be so fired-up after 20 years, rather than being beaten down, is an incredible thing.”

"We knew this was going to be more than a side-project"

Hear Anthony on why the members of L.S. Dunes are drawn to the band "like a magnet"

Maintaining ‘creative purity’ isn’t an issue, but that kind of hard-touring means survival within the music industry machine. Fortunately, navigating it together has only bound them closer.

“Dealing with the music business is a lot like dealing with the force of a wave,” Anthony explains. “We have the benefit of knowing what it’s like to go out there and be crushed by that wave. To go too far from shore. To go for too much. With L.S. Dunes, we’re so much more able to go out there and set our own pace, surf around, enjoy it more. We’re not fighting anything. We’re not biting off more than we can chew. It’s a luxury to choose how much of that force we give ourselves towards.”

“You’ve got to navigate the business side,” Frank runs on, “but what a great fucking problem to have. It’s like finding diamond shoes that are just a little too tight. It’s made this band stronger and our music more fully-realised, too. The story of us making our first record Past Lives during the pandemic has already been told. We’d written instrumentals that were jammed with riffs and melody. Just so full of notes. Then Anthony came in and, I don’t know how, but he found space for his vocals and ripped it.

“Making an album second time out, we were writing with the expectation and understanding of what everyone would bring to the table. We knew it was a record fans were actually going to listen to: a follow-up to another one they already had. We’ve lived and toured together on the road, getting closer as human beings, creatives and bandmates. We knew each others’ idiosyncrasies and insecurities, when to leave space in something you’re writing for someone else to fill-in. Those trust-falls are so important for an endeavour like this. Making music together or having this kind of creative bond – this give-and-take – with other artists is an intimate relationship. We’re not fucking, but we are giving each other all of ourselves...”

Frank Iero knows the old musicians’ fable of Tom Waits and the empty guitar may be more myth than reality but, as with the best tall tales, facts shouldn’t be allowed to get in the way of the truth.

Legend has it the infamous Californian troubadour walked into an anonymous music shop one day, lifted an old six-string from the racks, rolled it over, turned it upside down, rattled it, shook his head and left. A week later, he returned to the same store and picked up the same guitar, raised it to his face, sniffed the fretboard, peered into the sound hole, hung it back on its stand and went on his merry way. Another seven days passed and he was back to go through the same odd routine. The store owner came over to ask why the esteemed Mr. Waits had so deeply examined this instrument without ever strumming a chord, and if he’d like to properly take it for a spin. ‘Nah,’ shrugged old Tom. ‘That one ain’t got any songs left in it.’ Then he left the store never to return.

“It’s true, man,” Frank grins at the beloved anecdote. “I really believe that every instrument has a soul of some sort; something inside it that you need to draw out. Every so often you’ll get that ‘Harry Potter chooses a wand’ moment where there’s a connection that just blows your hair back.”

Such was the feeling when Frank received a new Fender Highway Acoustic Electric X from a friend close to the beginning of Violet’s creative process. Immediately falling in love and sitting down to noodle through a thank you video, the record’s title-track hit him in its gorgeous entirety.

“It just fell out of me,” he says, the recording still available as proof. “I believe that song was meant to come from that guitar on that day. Sometimes, you’ve just got to follow the road signs.”

"We’ve all been artists our entire working lives, we don’t have anything left to prove"

Hear Frank on why there is no fear of failure in L.S. Dunes

Chronicling L.S. Dunes’ short existence so far, such instances of organic alchemy and easygoing serendipity are in plentiful supply. Anthony stresses that rather than conventional milestones – massive shows, hitting sales targets – the defining moments are smaller-scale, more personal: crying together over shared loss on the bus; tapping into their “telepathy” as songs come together; seeing the signs and synchronicities that prove this band was meant to be.

“It’s too profound to be about some accolade or accomplishment,” he says. “It’s not something obvious you can just put your finger on.”

Frank sighs. Not undermining their other, more conventionally successful bands is a priority for all of L.S. Dunes. But that success is a double-edged sword whose swing it’s liberating to escape.

“I’m gonna be as honest as I possibly can,” he gives a cautious, lopsided smile. “When you’re in this line of work for as long as we’ve been, a certain sense of legacy and fear can creep in. Bands that have been around for a long time can become wary of taking risks and creating something new that might ‘tarnish a legacy’ or ‘disrupt a legendary status’. In this band, there’s none of that.”

Frank has spoken before about his fandom for English art rock icons Radiohead, and there is something of what he describes in how that band’s core members – Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood – founded The Smile to forge onward musically without the weight of legacy. Following the thought, it’s fascinating to think whether the reaction to Metallica’s mega-divisive Load/Reload era would’ve been kinder had The Four Horsemen dropped those albums under a different name.

“We’re in a very unique place,” Frank continues. “We’ve all been artists our entire working lives: 20-something years each. We don’t have anything left to prove. We’re not afraid of pitfalls. There isn’t any trepidation. At the same time, L.S. Dunes is still a new band and we’ve got our whole creative lives in front of us. There aren’t any preconceived notions of what a second L.S. Dunes album should sound like in the way there might be for a fifth or sixth Thursday or Coheed or My Chem record. We’re writing the script as we go along. No rules. Nothing to prove.”

Unfettered creativity sees Violet unfold in bold and unexpected ways. Lead single Fatal Deluxe is both familiar and fresh, bridging the band they were and the one they are becoming with equal measures shimmer and swagger. Paper Tigers pulls together its sludgy tempo, big riffs and soaring vocals to euphoric effect. The aforementioned title-track is a masterclass in grandiose, melancholic post-hardcore: beautifully layered, emotionally complex, unapologetically mature. No song is more emblematic of the sublime interpersonal chemistry than opener Like Magick. A late-in-the-day addition that started life as an Anthony Green solo song, its build from a low, breathy intro is true to the title – a starry sleight of hand that proves anything is possible with spark and a little belief.

“Music is magic,” Anthony evangelises. “It can be a time-machine. It can be a healing force. It can be anything you want. As a musician, sometimes you forget that in pursuit of ‘The Big Song’, but when you really whittle it down it’s just you with your record player and your fucking soul. And how those things harmonise. That’s the fundamental foundation of everything [about this band].”

Frank grins. “You and I might not have grown up together. We might not know each other. But from thousands of miles away I can put my finger on a string on a piece of wood, have that vibrate into a microphone and record it, then when that’s played back, it resonates this little drum inside your head and conjures up an emotion: happiness or sadness, hope or nostalgia. How magic is that?!”

"Music should surprise you, it should be magical"

Hear Frank on the joy of having no boundaries to your creativity

Painted in terracotta pink, slate grey and wavy greens and blues, Violet’s cover depicts a figure in a boat at sea. Contrasting coldly with Past Lives’ orange and beige artwork – five equal elements in perfect harmony that might represent the members of the band – it feels more eerily unexplained. From this writer’s perspective, it is an image of a wraith, perhaps the Grim Reaper himself, trapped in a storm. Frank and Anthony stroke their chins at this observation, like psychologists whose patient has just seen a blood-splatter in a Rorschach test. Darkness or light, they insist, is in the eye of the beholder, and their own understandings of the image are grounded firmly in hope.

“Are those stormy seas, or are they open waters?” challenges Frank. “Is it sunrise or sunset? Is that figure trapped or are they escaping? Are they looking for something? Longing for it? I’m happy that artwork isn’t actually purple. With the title Violet, that would be too much. But beyond that it’s important that things can’t be fully defined. Open-ended ideas are key. I like to think it’s a person alone, fighting for a way out. To me, that’s hopeful. But maybe I’m the one who’s fuckin’ nuts!”

“It’s like a Tarot card,” elaborates Anthony. “It’s so interesting to me that someone might see Death in that image. Reading Tarot, when you draw Death, you’re actually foretelling a new beginning. Often, new beginnings mean killing something old. That can be hard. But it can also be necessary.”

Over those 100-odd shows L.S. Dunes have played so far, past negativity had worn on the vocalist. Although far from a permanent fixture in their set, the closing line of Sleep Cult – ‘Sorry that I wish that I was dead’ – particularly needled. The kind of artist who needs to re-live the root emotions every time a song is sung, it was a lyric that drew him back into a shadow that he thought he had escaped, and he’d often stumble offstage emotionally rinsed and in tears.

“If I’m going to be singing a song 100 times I need it to light my path,” he reasons. “I was in a real dark place when I was doing Past Lives – and I hate it when artists say that because people are in a real dark place all the time – but I was honestly going through such a tough patch. Feeling free from some of that I selfishly wanted these songs to represent it. Hope is a weird word. A lot of the time hope is about letting go rather than hanging on. I needed to make something that meant that even if I found myself in that destructive mode, it was about destroying something that needed to be destroyed rather than my will to keep going.”

Lyrically, the word ‘violet’ does not appear on this album bearing that name. Originating from the vocal sounds Frank overlaid on his instrumental, it stuck with both that song and this longer chapter. Research would reveal that the colour represents spiritual wisdom, acceptance, strength and creativity. The flower has medicinal purposes. Lapsed Catholic Anthony remembers how priests in Lent would wear violet vestments to symbolise both the brutal passion of Jesus Christ and the promise of salvation and rebirth that always comes in the spring. As writing progressed, it became emblematic of a subtle, cerebral optimism that pulses throughout.

‘You have got a hope that there is something more for us to make / In the midst of understanding / Brick by brick we split the take,’ Anthony croons on I Can See It Now… close to the record’s beginning. By the end, he’s waving farewell to, ‘All the words in history / Aggravate to based in longing / All the wounds that I forget / Things I thought would last forever...’

Understanding. Conciliation. Acceptance. As feelings go, they haven’t the bombast or inherent drama of new love or heartbreak, outrage or jubilation, but these songs know they’re just as capable of changing our world. First time out, L.S. Dunes raged against the atrocities of January 6, 2021 on Bombsquad. In January 2025, 12 months since entering the studio again with producer Will Yip, Violet will blare as the perpetrators of that day take back the highest offices of power.

“We’ve had this secret that we were waiting to release out into the world,” Frank says. “And, for me, to provide something that feels hopeful or uplifting at a time when things aren’t hopeful or uplifting – to be a light in the darkness – is an artist’s job. Things happen for a reason. Maybe that makes this the best time for Violet to come out. In times of darkness, the last thing that we need is more despair. I was asked recently what, other than music, makes me hopeful on a daily basis. Honestly, it’s my kids. They allow me to see on a second-by-second basis that not everything is dark and shitty. The kids I’m surrounded with know the difference between good and bad. They want things to be better. They see what’s fucked up. They think it’s crazy when we can’t seem to fix it. Being an inspiration for them is so important: showing that [that fight] is not all for nothing.”

Conventional success – that double-edged sword of fame and fortune we spoke about earlier – may not be the endgame for L.S. Dunes, but there’s nothing lacking in sense of achievement.

“Success is about being friends and caring about each other,” stresses Anthony. “There are plenty of people my age doing this job that don’t even like it anymore, but they don’t know anything else. To be 42 and still making this music and building this band for each other is a gift. There isn’t some big thing we’re working towards. It’s about doing what we’re doing. That gets more exciting to us every day. If that feeling stops at some point, we’ll know what to do. Until then, we’re going to keep digging and writing music and playing shows. It’s what we’re made of. It’s who we are.”

“I’m never thinking about the end,” nods Frank. “Success is being there, being present, being gracious for the time we have. I continue to write and create things without thinking about it much in the same way that I don’t think about the next breath I’ll take. It’s just what I do. And in the same way that no-one knows when it’s the last time to go outside to play pretend with their friends, I won’t know the last music I ever make. I just keep going and going and hope that the next thing is better than what came before...”

Violet is released on January 31 via Fantasy Records.

L.S. Dunes are on tour in the UK and Europe with Rise Against from January 28. They will also play headline dates in Leeds on January 30 and Cardiff on February 10. Get your tickets now.

[shorthaltsjester]

re the first three tlovm s3 episode title teaser fr. vex getting [redacted] while standing in front of percy . i will undoubtedly have Thoughts about plot n adaption once the whole season is out but i will say people acting like vex potentially dying again is a betrayal of the arc is . i say this politely. ridiculous. vex’s most common habit aside from haggling and flirting in campaign 1 was being knocked unconscious. she required full ass resurrection spells on four separate occasions. we currently have no idea what the shape of any arc in season 3 will look like beyond broad strokes and teasing shots. if they end up wanting to incorporate the exandrian magic lore of it’s harder to come back each time you die, vex seems like the obvious opportunity to do so. please at the very least save the panic posting for when you actually have something to panic about .

[undeadoracle]

c3 has certainly been the least satisfying campaign so far, but the interesting thing about that is that i don't think you can point to any single point of failure and say "there, that's where it went wrong." it's been more of a death by a thousand cuts. this is going to be criticism, but very broad strokes from a narrative perspective.

first off: to try and play out a campaign with such monumental stakes is already quite ambitious, and unfortunately the player characters for this campaign were exactly the wrong mix for dealing with divinity. bells hells never really had a reason to do the right thing; vox machina's story was very clear cut good-and-bad, along with the personal investment of seeing their homes and people they care about under threat. the mighty nein floundered at times, but had enough self motivated and strongly opinionated characters with outside ties to keep the game moving even when they weren't sure where they were going. molly's death also galvanized them to Give A Shit about consequences and what was going on around them in a way they hadn't before.

bells hells, on the other hand, has never had any personal stake in any of this; laudna, chetney, ashton and braius are functionally alone in the world, with nothing to fight for and no close relationships to see threatened. (sure, braius is ostensibly a paladin of asmodeus, but sam himself has admitted he's not good at staying committed to evil characters. i appreciate the intention behind bringing a religious character back into the campaign after fcg's ending, but braius has been flaky, at best, about his loyalties.) fcg was just beginning to forge those bonds when they died. fearne's family is safely squirreled away in morrigan's piece of the feywild, away from consequences, and she doesn't give a shit about her father. imogen only had her mother, who she always kept sort of holding out hope for and keeping at arms length at the same time. aside from her, orym is the only one with emotional stakes in of all this, and even that was more attached to ludinus himself than the larger plot of predathos being released.

ergo, none of these characters except imogen and orym have personal investment in the story they're spearheading. obviously this is accidental; with them going into campaigns blind, there's no way they could have predicted they weren't going to mesh with the plot. in a story like c1 (largely black and white apocalypse scenarios solved by stereotypical hero work) or c2 (some political maneuvering, but, again, straightforward "stop this tyrannical flesh city" consequences) these pcs might've worked fine, but having characters who are not only disconnected from the gods, but from other mortals, means they never really figured out who or what they're fighting for. each of them is too caught up endlessly ruminating over their own isolation; none of them played a character with enough purpose and/or stability in life to really bring the team together for any common goal. fcg, again, almost got there, and their loss re-fractured the team. chetney sometimes steps in, because travis is a player with great instincts, but it would be playing against his established personality to always have him take on this role. no one else has the emotional intelligence or social skills to encourage the others on paths of personal growth, and with the plot essentially being on a timer for so long, there hasn't been room for the sorts of side trips and time skips that both c1 and c2 had to allow offscreen character development to happen. they've been hurtling at their goal for most of the campaign with no opportunity to work on themselves, and it shows. the characters have largely remained stagnant.

then there's the lack of meaningful npcs. this is partially because they've been all over kingdom come, and partially because they've never really committed to being on anyone's side long enough to form bonds with npcs. they have no "home base," no faction loyalties except orym's loyalty to the ashari and fearne's loyalty to morrigan, and again, few personal ties that would easily translate into recurring npcs. given that the purpose of npcs is largely to keep the plot moving forward . . . you can see how the hells have suffered without them.

this next part is going to piss some people off, because it's (gentle) criticism of matt, but it needs to be said. i do not think he should have told this story. i'm not talking about technical ability as a dm, i mean more from a philosophical, anthropological, religiological perspective. exandria is a world the opposite of ours, in which the existence of gods is unilaterally accepted and observable, but their "right" to act as such is now under debate with the revelation that they originated elsewhere, came to exandria, engaged in cultivation of exandria's raw materials, & killed the titans who technically had the "right" to the land but wanted to wipe their creations off the face of the earth. then things devolve into polytheistic dualism, a pantheon of good gods and a pantheon of bad gods, and they spend a long time warring with each other and killing each others' creations before, eventually, mortals figure out how to kill them, and they join forces to stop that before agreeing to withdraw their presence behind the divine gate.

then he includes this confusing angle that "divine" magic isn't actually divine in origin, it's just another kind of magic that exists and the gods have taken credit for it. then he becomes vague as to what sort of "cultivating" the gods actually did--whether they're responsible for life as it's known on exandria, or whether or not they've just taken credit for what was already there. which is a level of ambiguity that's deeply unsatisfying in a setting where any sufficiently devoted priest can directly talk to their god. the conclusion, then, is that the gods withhold the truth from mortals--not because mortals can't comprehend it, it seems, but because it is beneficial to the gods to withhold it.

there is no real world religion (that i know of) that is in any way comparable to this sequence of events. dualism as a concept does not play well with polytheism as a religious structure, and titan-type figures, aka superentities that are "othered" from the gods, are generally considered as fearsome forces that cause problems but aren't specifically interested in wiping humans off the face of the earth. and the gods themselves, it is understood, are of this world; typically they're either inhabitants of it in some abstract way, or they live in a plane of reality adjacent to it and are directly responsible for making it what it is. but they also, it is understood, cannot be held to human standards; that's why they're gods.

the reason exandrian religion crumbles under interrogation is that real world mythology is metaphor, and exandrian mythology is not. in the real world, mythology is a reflection of humanity, struggling to make sense of big concepts; in exandria, it's objective fact, but there's not really any theological rhyme or reason to any of it. when we tell stories about gods and demons we are not speaking of literal things that our great grandparents experienced, we are telling the stories for their deeper meaning. when you try to do that with exandrian mythology, it becomes a story of how the natural world has to be conquered and die in order for mortals to survive and the underpinnings of the universe are one big illusion, but they can still grant you real, tangible power. when you try to take it as a metaphor, it kind of sucks.

i'm not suggesting matt did this on purpose; i think it largely happened by accident. in c1 they started out using pathfinder deities, and then he transitioned into a sort of half-original version of them, then solidified them into a specific pantheon with clear influences from preexisting deities, but with his own explanations for why they exist. i also think he deliberately avoided making them too much like real world deities in order to avoid stepping on any real world toes, which is understandable. it is the struggle of any high fantasy enthusiast to have tangible gods make sense without being world breaking. but the point is that all these little changes and additions and careful avoidance of real-world issues added up to paint a poor picture in their own right, and then he drew his entire audience's attention to it by choosing to do a campaign about whether or not the gods should be allowed to exist. and even so, this might've worked out okay, had the players come to the game with a different mix of characters. we can see the difference in how vm and m9 reacted to the situation; a different group could've taken this story down a much more compelling path than bh did.

in the same vein, i think another ongoing issue in how this has played out is matt being anxious about people projecting their feelings about real world religion onto the plot. i don't blame him; he's under immense pressure to perform with the size of their fanbase nowadays, and i remember how many people were shitting their proverbial pants over the traveler's offhand comment about how there's no purpose to the universe back in c2. i get why he doesn't want to deal with that again. and i think the players are also afraid to be seen as either condoning religious oppression or condemning personal belief, so they've been hesitant to take a strong stance on anything, for fear that no matter what they choose fans will bring their own feelings about religion into their reactions to the game. the only exception, really, has been taliesin, and we see how much anger and criticism he gets from fans every single week who assume he's using ashton as a mouthpiece for his own ideals, even though he played an explicitly pro-god character last campaign.

and matt, presumably realizing this was becoming a problem, has backtracked instead of doubling down on the stance of "this has nothing to do with reality, stop projecting," both to his players and the audience. instead, he's grown increasingly vague about what, if any, the actual consequences of all this will be. there was no question of the consequences in c1 or c2 being catastrophic. but now we're working with a plot for which, it seems, there are no real consequences either way. apparently, everything will stay the same no matter what the bh choose, because apparently, saying "there will be catastrophic consequences for releasing a godeater" is the same in some people's minds as "mortals need religion in order to be good." it's the issue of our real-world religious metaphors running into the exandrian religious literalism again.

the problem then becomes that, in order to not take a stance of either "religion bad" or "religion necessary," he has had to create a plot for which all outcomes are the same, so bh just have to make the moral, philosophical decision on behalf of the entire world of whether or not the gods "deserve" to live. which is crazy! no wonder the players have constantly been plagued by indecision, second guessing, and lack of direction. by removing any distinct outcome either way, they've avoided making a statement that anyone might be upset by--and also created an ending with no substance or emotional impact.

honestly i feel like i could dissect this more, but i think the point has been made well enough: this campaign has died a death by a thousand cuts.

[arclundarchivist]

That was a really good episode.

Ashton finally got knocked off their high horse and realized that he is the source of a good chunk of the problems in his life not others. I’m actually excited to see where his character goes from here, because before *he thought he was always right* and now that concept has utterly been slapped from his mind.

The Shard remains unclaimed, his powers partially awoken.

Laudna is legit worrying me, regressing to Matilda, I’m kind of hoping Imogen approaches Morri about Delilah. But you can still see her refusing whst Delilah wants, and her not being sure how to deal with it. “Why would you believe I would do the same thing?” And the *pinnacle* of selfish desire Delilah Briarwood just being *unable* to figure out how to rebuke that.

And while I’m not super stoked about the Moon getting pushed back again, Morri’s little monologue has me *deeply* intrigued.

Fearne’s mother trucked in dark poses which seemingly shaped her “heritage/fate” and I’m curious to see how that shakes out, and if with encouragement from her Grandmother Fearne may finally take a step forward on her path.

MVP of the episode though, Chet, Travis put in a lot of good character work, him comforting Fearne and directly challenging Ashton was great, and FCG/Sam wasn’t far behind, “Do you actually care about anyone?”

Not sure if the Reunion revived them, but I *hope* this momentum sticks.

[jibril-thelibraryangel]

In case they announce there’s not going to be a new campaign and I cannot make this post ever again… here is my wishlist for campaign 4

- Laura as a buff lady, doesn’t necessarily need to be barbarian but a strong lady is enough

- Taliesin can play whatever as long as he finally grabs some god damn charisma to go with it, if Percy DeRolo and Mollymauk Tealeaf are what he considers “low charisma” I need to know what his idea of a high one looks like

- Marisha, honestly I think she did a great job as a femme fatale she could bring that same character as the Daggerheart one shot as long as she stops the baby voice. Would also love to know what she can do with a character that’s meant to be suave

- Travis, he’s honestly so smart already I’m dying to see what he does with a wizard, but I’ll be happy with any class with a high spell list

- Liam, I don’t necessarily want to take away his chance to be sad little men but I would love him in the more fun trickster role Vax sometimes had in C1… also maybe a woman?

- Ashley, big advocate for little guy Ashley, she should be just a little guy with a knife

- Sam should play gay again, but like… a really mean gay

- Robbie can do whatever the hell he wants as long as he stays

And here is a more general wishlist:

- PCs with familial ties (need to hit that Vax Vex high again)

- I understand the complications of teenage PCs… but it could be fun

- Marisha PC x NPC romance, I want Marisha to try to romance her husband

- Sam has been the one instigating romance for a while but it never quite works out for him, let Sam be part of the next big PC/PC romance in the fandom (bonus if Liam romance)

- Cat person PC (bonus if catboy)

- Someone plays the opposite gender

- Return of the tieflings

- Drow

- Bard

- Ranger

- Mounted PC

- Lesbians again

- De Rolo family cameos

- A PC is a reincarnated god

- Low magic party

- Animal companion for plushies (free space)

[utilitycaster]

As someone who is still learning mechanics and hoping to improve, what would you say makes Travis and Aabria specifically brilliant at them vs storytelling?

So to clarify I think Travis and Aabria are also both excellent storytellers. I was distinguishing them from players like Sam or Ally who are solid but mechanically unexceptional, but are good enough at understanding what makes for a story beat that it doesn't matter. A lot of Sam's credit is for seizing dramatic moments confidently while doing a very reasonable move; a lot of Ally's is for their willingness to bet on a nat 20 at the table; and both of them are good at embracing failure without hesitation.

Travis and Aabria are specifically strong mechanically in terms of being able to optimize a character to be able to do specific things. Laerryn's build is an excellent example: the Eldritch Adept feat with armor of shadows recharges her arcane ward, which along with the tough feat makes her much, well, tougher than your average wizard; she also made spell choices that would specifically give her, as a wizard, a chance against Mage-Slayer Cerrit. Fjord, meanwhile, manages to combine a pretty high dose of utility (disguise/illusion as well as later, healing); damage at pretty much any standard distance (from melee range to eldritch blast range); tanking, particularly while Yasha isn't present and Beau is at lower levels (high CON, half-orc, later the tough feat, armor of agathys) and short-distance teleportation and mobility to truly make him able to deliver a smite no matter where you are on the battlefield.

I also think that while I am a big supporter of being willing to take a small hit to your efficacy or making suboptimal choices in the service of character - which Sam does - Travis and Aabria are very good at marrying beneficial mechanics with character decisions, like Fjord's Mask of Many Faces being emblematic of his whole character arc, or Suvi picking up Inflict Wounds after spending time in the company of Witches.

My point here is very much that a character or player doesn't have to be mechanically brilliant nor complex (and some mechanically good characters do not have a complex build; Keyleth is a great example of that because Circle of the Moon Druid is simply so good that there's not much to add to it) to be a very good D&D player if they understand how to use the mechanics to dramatic effect and are collaborative and generous. Indeed, you should try to be those things first (and Travis and Aabria are) and then complicated, optimized mechanics are just icing on the cake.