#savalirwood

[aldercaps]

🍂🪦 ghost of the savalirwood 🫧❄️🌲

[amihyperfixatingagain]

The animals in the Savalirwood are lacking facial features they would normally have. Eyes, mouths, noses… Matt also deliberately pointed out (again) the creature Imogen summoned (probably a reilora but not actually confirmed) also lacked facial features. It had glowing spots representing its eyes but didn’t actually have eyes or a mouth or nose or anything like that.

What if the corruption of Molaesmyr and the Savalirwood is directly from Ruidus? Whatever continent that was turned into Ruidus and all those people on it have obviously been corrupted in some way and that rot has been fine tuned for centuries. If Ludinus tried to release Predathos while in Molaesmyr, what if instead of an insanely powerful dispel magic beam being shot into the moon, it backfired. Quite literally. What if the moon (or the magical gate around the moon) fired back essentially a nuke full of the same corruption already on Ruidus back into Molaesmyr, either by design or wild magic or whatever.

What if this corruption is a godly creation and was used in the destruction of Aeor? Was it created by a prime deity? Or a betrayed god? Or more than one? Hmmmmmmmmmm.

[thatoneacecryptid]

Cannot tell you how much it screws me up thinking about the Savalirwood and how that corruption has affected so many characters and then remembering that it is all Ludinus Da’leth’s fault

[masterqwertster]

Some strings to connect from what we've learned about Aeor and Ludinus in ep58 and some older lore:

Ludinus caused the fall of Molaesmyr and the creation/corruption of the Savalirwood by trying to commune/draw power from Ruidus/Predathos

the Malleus Keys are a modern attempt at the Factorum Malleus (like I thought)

someone(s) on Aeor managed to create a corruption similar to the Savalirwood

there was an anti-Factorum Malleus faction at the end of Aeor

So I posit that the anti-faction on Aeor knew that the nasty tree corruption happened from trying to connect to Ruidus/Predathos, since that's presumably how one does it. They knew that this power that could, yes, destroy the gods, but would also corrupt and twist whatever it came into contact with, and they did not like that.

That's why they were trying to stop the Factorum: to protect Exandria from becoming the Savalirwood just to get rid of the gods. Or, you know, they didn't want the corruption on themselves (who cares about the rest of the world? Maybe not these Wizard Hubris people).

[overnighttosunflowers]

[bookshopsbizarreblog]

Big Spoilers ahead for C2 (through E119) and C3 (through E58)

I'm certain most people who are up to date with C3 at this point know about the possible connection between the Malleus Keys and Aeor's "Factorum Malleus." The names use the same word, both were designed with God-killing intent. But I just stumbled across something that makes the connection even more explicit. In C2 E119, while the Mighty Nein are exploring a minor Aeorean ruin, they stumble across the remnants of a team sent by Ludinus Daleth. That in itself isn't particularly damning, as pretty much everyone with arcane interest and resources to spare was sending excavators to Eiselcross. What makes it more significant is that the Mighty Nein comes across trees in the depths of the ruin. Trees with the same corruption as the Savalirwood.

We know the Savalirwood's situation was caused by Ludinus reaching out to Predathos, and now it seems pretty explicit that Aeor was doing so too. Their god killer, the Factorum Malleus, was so dangerous they got smacked out of the sky for it. And Ludinus had teams searching places of Predathos-related corruption and winds up with the design for Malleus keys. I can't wait to learn how much deeper the thread goes. And it has been astonishing, in retrospect, how much of C3 was foreshadowed by C2. I'm doing another listen through right now and recommend starting when M9 goes to Uthadurn, because that's where the connections really start.

[glass-spark]

I am someone who loves BBEG villains in fantasy. I relish every lore-dump. I want to know what drives them to do what they do. Why is this person such an asshole? Why are they still doing the thing when they are causing so much suffering?

I also love the journey to the inevitable ass-kicking.

Somehow, seeing the state of Molaesmyr highlights the depths to which Ludinus has sunk to achieve his goal. Those twisted, faceless creatures. The bones of fleeing families half-consumed by trees. Wandering ghosts never able to rest, snatches of their voices on the wind.

What the hell got Ludinus to the point where he could do that to Molaesmyr and walk away still convinced he was right? Someone like that, convinced the innocents of Molaesmyr were simply collateral, is absolutely willing to break the world to kill the gods.

Ludinus is scary. He is a fascinating villain and, honestly, while I need all the lore on him right this second, I cannot wait to see him get his ass kicked.

*This post assumes Ludinus caused the fall of Molaesmyr (he totally did, though, we all know it)

[artandhijinks]

"Travelers Beware of the Savalirwood"

Did anyone else enjoy the Savalirwood because I did

Prints available on Fine Art America and Redbubble

[ariadne-mouse]

thiccet

[tangent101]

Yeah. Funny that. It's almost as if... humanity didn't work to break the Betrayer Gods out of their prisons so they could return to Exandria and in doing so cause the Calamity. In fact, the non-Betrayer Gods suffered greatly in fighting their brethren and allowing a third of humanity to survive.

And it was the "Prime Deities" hiding how the Raven Queen ascended into Godhood which led this widespread effort to break the Betrayer Deities out of their prisons, almost as if Gods who fought their own kin to protect mortals were... not thrilled at the idea of being destroyed and replaced by those mortals. Hmm. Weird that.

If the Gods of Exandria were all as truly horrible as Ludinus likes to claim, they would have left Exandria to the Betrayer Gods and just started over elsewhere. And in fact, the Prime Deities created the Divine Gate so that none of the Gods could walk on the surface of Exandria again to create that level of devastation again... and in doing so they likely weakened themselves. There was a reason the Gods liked walking among their mortal worshipers, after all!

So basically... some powerful mages, upset with the fact they could not just off the Gods and replace them, broke the Betrayer Gods out of their divine prison which resulted in a massive war that harmed both sides and hurt a lot of people. It's like blaming atomic power for harming people rather than the people in positions of power who fail to use atomic power safely and effectively.

If you want to blame anyone for the Calamity, blame wizards like Ludinus Da'leth who decided to fuck over the world for their own power... actions which Ludinus Da'leth is attempting once again by releasing an entity that corrupted an entire swatch of Exandria just a few hundred years earlier as seen in the Savalirwood.

Hell, the very man who claims that Predathos won't harm Exandria created a centuries-long corrupted wasteland in his efforts to connect to Predathos. This is akin to trusting a man who detonated a dirty bomb in a major breadbasket part of America with the nuclear football for all of our nuclear arsenal. And this is a dark secret he has hidden from everyone.

So. We should trust the words of a power-hungry mortal archmage who created a region of magical corruption that persists to this very day with what he says about the Gods and the need to release a "predator" to the Gods while claiming Exandria will be just fine.

Riiiiiight.

Just gonna slide a few more points into the "what have the gods done for us?" debate that I haven't seen brought up much yet. The gods have:

– killed 2/3rds of the population during the Calamity

– turned most of Marquet into a desert

– tortured a good and holy man into the undying scourge called the Laughing Hand and granted the legendarily evil and unstoppable assassin the Inevitable End immortality

– created the leviathan Uk'otoa to wreak havoc in the Lucidean ocean

– created rifts to the abyss in Bazzoxan and across Wildemount to release a scourge of demons into the world, multiple times

I could continue, but I think these are a pretty good sampling? Not seen much discussion around these yet in the debate about what keeping the gods is gonna do for exandria, smh. Or why normal exandrians might have good reasons for wanting the gods gone

[cassafrasscr]

They should've asked the Arch Heart about Molaesmyr.

[c-kiddo]

has it been acknowledged yet in cr3 that ludinus wants to kill the gods for exploding a city when he also has exploded a city and poisoned an entire ancient forest alongside it ? because he did do that, and yes there are people still alive from molaesmyr and the savalirwood. yea, for sure not as many people died and the survivors relocated north. um the groundwater is undrinkable though. he did absolutely ruin everyones lives who was from there

[dent-de-leon]

still in agony over the thought that both Molly and his/Lucien's brother were killed by people working for the Jagentoths, buried in the snow in Shadycreek, and then resurrected by someone else against their will--

Hurts even more when you think about how Lucien was always terrified he'd never be able to escape Shadycreek. Opening his eyes and realizing he still died in the Run anyway, like he'd never left, like nothing had ever changed in spite of everything--

And it's achingly bittersweet in a way, that Lucien died in the cursed Savalirwood--that Mollymauk opened his eyes there for the first time.

And then, in another life, when this burning bright soul is reborn again, his family takes him back home. Back to a Savalirwood that's beginning to finally heal, to this little patch of solace and respite, all the verdant greenery and flourishing flowers of the Blooming Grove. "Something new will grow here."

[tangent101]

Okay. But let's consider this. What if Ludinus is a victim of "curiosity ate the cat" and is infected by Predathos, having to break it out of its prison? And his actions have been responsible for the growth of Ruidusborn following the Savalirwood incident?

Essentially, when Ludinus first managed to contact Predathos, a seed was planted. This may be something Predathos has done multiple times over the millennia (and is part of why the Temples do their best to dissuade folk from looking to Ruidus). But in Ludinus, the seed sprouted in a most horrible fashion, allowing Predathos the chance to corrupt part of Exandria once more and have a far greater influence in the world.

Think of what Ludinus did at the end. He powered a time-skip at great personal expense to bring Ruidus into the sky for the ceremony. And then when there was not enough power left... he stuck his other, unharmed, arm into the machine and gave as much of his own power to try and free Predathos.

This is not a sane action. This is the action of a cultist who has drunk the Koolaid, of someone willing to sacrifice themselves for their cause. This is the sort of thing that insane worshipers of some dark God would do to free their God... something that Ludinus claims to detest and want to eliminate.

In short... it is an act of insanity... akin to an ant infected with a fungus crawling up a plant so that a bird could snatch and eat it so to continue the fungus' life cycle. Ludinus may very well believe that he is acting of his own free will... but much like the Indoctrinated in Mass Effect he is sure he is doing what he wants to... rather than a course of action that some dark entity planted in his head hundreds of years ago.

Of course I may be wrong. This is not meant to wave away blame from Ludinus, and he may very well be acting entirely of his own volition. But it is an interesting thought experiment... and may explain some rather odd actions by him.

I understand the anti-gods argument Ludinus Da’leth uses, like it even, however he is obviously going about it in a diabolical way, and honestly I don’t really believe it all when it’s coming from HIS mouth. He’s not really doing this for the good of the people, and he WILL have another trick up his sleeve. But I don’t blame Bell’s Hells for questioning themselves, considering how little the gods have done for them, and how little they even noticed their presence before this whole mess. They have no attachment to the gods, and with the shit they’ve been through they’re really starting to question whether they’re worth saving, but at the end of the day, at least the gods don’t have a very big chance of eating the whole of Exandria. Better the devil you know, I guess.

Added note: I just think it’s a much more difficult decision for BH than people think it is, considering that they literally have NO IDEA what Predathos will do. However, I think they DO have a gut feeling that no matter what, Ludinus will use whatever he can to gain power, hurting the whole of Exandria in the process if he has to, and I’m really glad that so far they’re following that gut theory, no matter how many times they stop and question the very, VERY complex morals of this shit.

[zelreedsandwrites]

Thinking about nurture vs nature and how Imogen specifically is leaning into the more vicious side of herself and god I wish someone would just be gentle to these characters and give them a chance to grow. We saw last campaign how nurture changes people (read Essek, read Caleb, read Molly/Lucien/Kingsley) and it’s just heartbreaking now seeing the opposite happen and these poor souls with so much capacity to care for each other just getting curb stomped until their humanity is so tarnished you’d never be able to tell how good they could have been. Like ffs Imogen wanted a quiet place with her *cough* roommate *cough* gal pal but now her moms working with the woman that killed aforementioned gal pal with the specific intent to break Imogen. And now we’re seeing her push away that key point of unconditional love, of hope, in her life because of it and I’m just—

I have been getting all my info from other tumblr posts so yk I may have some info wrong but there’s no way I’m THAT far off

[stardustedknuckles]

I like to think whatever of Melora's essence remains is gathered at the heart of the savalirwood and that even though the gods are distant for reasons we don't fully understand yet, even though they're threatened, one lonely celestial bull finds something of a home in her embrace - if not his own, the potential to become the guardian of another.

And maybe, amid the concern that is the Clay family trying to understand what has happened, a creature out of time in need of care might wander in, covered in starlight and just the sign needed to reassure them that their wildmother is still there in whatever small way she can be.