#wildemount setting

[costumerdelight]

No one probably cares but Imma post it anyways. Our D&D shenanigans because I'm abusing a Vestige of Divergence's powers for personal gain.

IE, I'm playing pranks for funsies

So quick background: we're playing in Wildemount, we started in Hupperdook with the jailbreak scenario. We picked up a kobold friend who we named Red.

We then went to Zadash via Felderwin (where my character is "from", more on that when I decide to post my PC's background) and found Calianna in the basement of the house of the guy who taught me swordfighting properly, a retired hero of his own regard. (We are playing a dragon-heavy campaign and I LOVE it! The farmhand was coerced into allowing the dragon cult to hold Cali in the basement)

Freed her, got her to Zadash, and we continued on our way to Pride's Call where another party member, William, is from, and he reunited with his family (and the player left the campaign :( ) while we lost Red. So we chased down who we thought kidnapped him and found him in a mountainous academy-ish campus with a bunch of dragons.

Side quest fetch quests ensue, where we go chase down a kid who stole a hammer, but we go to the Ruins of Shattengrad (where we get a bunch of bank notes), then towards Ice Haven, and in Ice Haven, my character gets "kidnapped" during a weird semi-dream fugue state. Turns out its the shipcrew of an old party member of mine from a long time ago, and I get to chat with my fey patron while on deck.

They take me to Balenpost in Eiselcross where the rest of my current party is landing (we had talked about following the thief kid to Eiselcross so I was able to request a drop off), and someone from the Claret Orders tried to recruit me, and I said nah.

We meet up and take off again to Syrinlya, but we get waylaid by a rotund frog man and a water elemental and he kidnaps our captain and we end up finding her, plus a tiefling mage named Honor. And we find a bunch of treasures! Including the Hide of the Feral Guardian, which one of the shipmates pilfered.

We investigated it and found out it was fancy magical, and I try to get it from the NPC. He refuses for a bit, but at some point he started getting weird dreams from it that he didn't like, so he gave it to me in exchange for the mithril armor I had found.

We get to Syrinlya and find the Buyer, who has us go after the other group to try and find the Salsvault, where the cure to the ice sickness is rumored to be found. We very much want to figure this out because our barbarian has the sickness, and we want her cured.

While en route, we find out our warlock was once a bear, amd that was how he crossed from the Dynasty into the Empire unimpeded. We also run across a frozen dragon, but we decide to look at it more closely later on our way back. I keep staring at the armor (because dumbass didn't put it on yet) and we keep going.

We find the vault and, surprisingly, get through it with minimal combat. Including persuading the mastermind behind the disease to tell us where the cure is. We get the cure, then the barbarian, already afflicted, finds the sickness storage vault and destroys it all. We still did not find the group so we start our return to Syrinlya, but partway there we have uninvited guests of some snowy kobolds show up (furry little cuties) and we chase them down because we don't know why they came after us.

We end up finding a weird bunch of kobolds who our barbarian convinces, with almost zero persuasive accumen, that she is a dragon in humanoid form, and she is on a mission to get a hammer from them for some dragons she knows (she did not know that the hammer was for a dragon until that moment). We get to go into the encampment and avoid all confrontations as we retrieve the hammer and leave on our merry way, with a message from these kobolds for the dragon we are going to go and see.

We continue back to Syrinlya, again, and find our frozen dragon. We uncover it from the snow and find it has an egg made of sapphire, and our warlock decides to free it and care for it. We have so many pets, because he has a faerie dragon familiar, the barbarian has a bird *and* an animated gauntlet. Now, dragon egg.

I decide to finally put on the Hide of the Feral Guardian, and gain the ability to polymorph/wildshape into a giant owl. I come to the party and sit on the egg, not realizing our warlock can understand me, so I just keep saying "whooo whooo" like an owl, in my own voice he can understand, and get an apt nickname. We return to Syrinlya, finally, and cure our barbarian. We celebrate with drinks and wait for the captain of our ship to return.

We get on the ship and take off towards Bysaes Tal, because we plan to reroute towards Rexxentrom to cash in our bank notes before going back to Pride's Call. On the ship, I prank the crewmate that had taken the armor originally and startle him much more than I expected to.

And that's where we are, level 6, and ready for what Wildemount has to offer, 100 days into our own journey as we camp on the shores of Bysaes Tal. (As a placemarker, when we went to Felderwin, it was just after the purple wurm attack and the M9 had gone into the tunnel. "Welp, those idiots are dead now." As we arrive to Bysaes Tal, the M9 arrive at Whitedawn Lagoon with Essek and his new wee parasol.)

[essektheylyss]

I'm glad we have a firm answer about how Artagan's affected by the Malleus Key's effects but I now need to know how the Luxon's handling it more than ever. What's the Dynasty up to. Vasselheim is religiously governed but like, by rotating appointment, and their gods can talk to them. Meanwhile there's a beacon in the key itself and the Dynasty's a theocratic monarchy. How's the divine right of kings holding up these days, Leylas.

[utilitycaster]

Where in the world was Ludinus Da'leth?

With the reveal that Ludinus was indeed telling the truth about being a Calamity survivor, as well as that he "suffered a lot of trauma at the tail end of the Calamity", implying he was relatively young (and indicating he's probably not Avaliran nor Aeorian since those were destroyed at least 50 years prior to the end of the Calamity and likely more, ie, his trauma would date back to much earlier within the Calamity):

[dent-de-leon]

ohh just had a thought of. a little fletching and moondrop traveling carnival oneshot--

[lastlymatt]

So I finally managed to introduce a particular npc into my D&D campaign and now half the party is confused and two of them are panicking because they know who he is and it's such tasty drama

- he's the wizard's former classmate and crush

- he's the older brother of the druid's best friend

- he murderer his little brother and the druid was blamed for that

- he was just getting back into contact with the wizard because the crush is mutual

This all went down at the theatre during a play where he tried to assassinate a crime lord

I wish this npc the best of luck because I have no idea whether he'll survive them

[neineyes]

All of my friends are so uncool, I need just 1 more played for our online heists and Mysteries d&d game but no one wants to jooooiiin. Gah.

[occidentalavian]

Full map of Exandria, 2024 update!

Map images and Wonderdraft file download [HERE]

Hi everyone! It's been about 4 years since my last map. In that time more of Exandria has revealed itself to us, and while it is still not a complete picture, we now have enough that I felt it was time to make an update.

The biggest change from my previous map is that I am no longer using the Elven Tower Cartography assets. This is because previously I installed them incorrectly, in a way that meant that people who downloaded the map file were unable to see the assets unless they installed it in the same weird way that I did. Rather than fixing this, I instead opted to use the default Wonderdraft assets, that way it can be viewed out of the box without having to download something else first!

As before, Tal'Dorei and Wildemount are the most accurate to official maps, and we also have an official map of at least one arrangement of the Shattered Teeth, which is re-created here. We have a portion of Marquet via the Oderan Wilds and Hellcatch Valley maps, but the rest, including all of Issylra is still mostly made up, based loosely on a very old and tiny map briefly shown on screen by Sam in episode 103 of Campaign 1! Naturally when any new maps come out, this map will (eventually) be updated to reflect them.

There are some locations that are new to this map as well, such as the Demithore Valley in Issylra from Campaign 3 and all the towns visited in The Re-Slayer's Take up to episode 10, these being Himblewood, Josgren's Hollow, Shoresight Isle, and the Hug Hive. Ta'Dorei has a few new towns, Mooren and Heldenfaire, which were mentioned in Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting Reborn, as well as a few unnamed village clusters, the Foramere and Vues'dal villages. For these and the Mornset Countryside I included some non-canonical paths connecting them to the main roadways. Also included in Mornset is Roch Mar, the village that Vox Moronica visited all the way back in Episode 12 of Campaign 1, before Critical Role even did separate numbering for one-shots and thus included this unrelated episode in the campaign. This town isn't officially confirmed to actually exist in Exandria, so consider it my headcanon and a paper town. Moving on to Wildemount, Vo Village got upgraded to proper town status, and I've also included Yardel from The Nine Eyes of Lucien, Ghostwall from The Tales of Exandria: The Bright Queen, and Galgarad from the Dark Star adventure on DnDBeyond!

I want to give a special thanks to Don Farland for his original fan map of Exandria, created all the way before the release of Explorer's Guide to Wildemount, upon which I originally based my map of the Shattered Teeth. Incidentally, I believe that this depiction of those islands was the basis upon which the official map by Andy Law is based upon. I would also like to thank Niko Vanhala for his fan-made maps of Marquet and Issylra, upon which I have loosely based my maps of those continents. And of course thank you to Andy Law and Deven Rue for the official cartography of Exandria!

[c-kiddo]

one of my fave things about cr2 i think is that tmn as characters are impossible to separate from their setting, wildemount . like its intrinsically part of all of them. beau and caleb want to try their bests to cut out the corruption in the empire despite knowing its deep-rooted, because they grew up there. veths from the empire too but from a smaller farming community, she's less connected to the government or politics in that way but her being from that town that was destroyed in the war is what makes esseks actions so severely hurt her. yasha sleeps on the floor for comfort and eats odd things because she's been nomadic her entire life. she recognises the big weird lumbering beasts they see in the wastes and just shrugs them off. jester and fjord are always relieved to see the menagerie coast again. jester has drawn that ocean view from her bedroom window so many times, she recommends shops and foods from nicodranas, and fjord worships the sea he grew up besides and worked on. caduceus listens to beau and caleb because he's from the north, outside of the empire, and trusts they understand the complicated political aspects more than he does. in exchange he shares his tea and food from home with them all, and when he's having winter clothes made he brings fabric from home as an example - his family have specific fabrics and patterns they pass down. his tea is only grown in the grove, his staff is from there, grew there with him. and his armour! and lichen! he carries his home with him everywhere. theyre all so rooted in the continent and i love that

[encyclopediacr]

If Essek's caprine set-baa-ck has you thinking about goats in Exandria, these articles will certainly float your goat. 🐐

Cliffneck goats, also called Flot goats, are found in the Flotket Alps of Wildemount. They're large and sturdy, and they're characterized by a large wreath of fur around their heads. The famed Jerry was a Flot goat.

Sillgoats are common in the Oderan Wilds of Marquet. They're often used instead of horses to navigate the inclines of Jrusar.

The goat-knight steeds of the Peakclimber Knights of Kraghammer in Tal'Dorei are actually celestials! They help patrol the Cliffkeep Mountains with ease and are the characteristic mount of the knightly order.

Goats are also the namesake of goatball, a sport played by half-giant clans in Tal'Dorei.

[blorbologist]

S3 eps 7-9 thoughts below the cut

This is all fresh after the episode and I gotta be up in a couple hours so it won't be fully thought out but...

I love a lot of the creative choices being made! But I think many weren't implemented well, or balanced nicely.

Just! as someone who has deconstructed Campaign 1 and made deviations to the timeline of events and etc (mind you, without the same goal of condensing things for television… but somehow the show has an equivalent perc'ahlia focus to a ship-centered fic?) I think… I can see several avenues of narrative choices that would strengthen the ideas they're going with instead of weakening them.

(My credentials here are 'almost 300k canon divergent AU that converged on a handful of similar plot points to TLOVM', but also the aims of an AU fanfic =/= that of a show. I understand and respect that challenge the team faced. But when a single amateur can point out issues that would be pretty easy to solve and detract from a very enjoyable experience... there might be a Problem)

Ripley doesn't need a sob story, she's getting a book anyways leave it there. Fully agree with @/aq2003. The whole point is that she's monstrous and evil and got her PhD out of a fucking cereal box. Percy is less like her than he thinks. But he dies and she just??? escapes??? IF Percy had to die without VM being present, having Ripley either die of her wounds right after or be unable to flee and get torn to shreds by them would have been excellent.

On that note - only Vex and Cass seem to show strong emotion about his death. Keyleth's supposed to be his best friend, and he and Grog were close this season, but. Well, not like we have any platonic relationships. Everyone's just Kinda Sad.

MAYBE IT'S BECAUSE OF THE MUSIC OVER PERCY'S DEATH HUH. Flashbacks to watching Vampire Diaries as a teenager and pop songs coming on over the end-of-episode drama.

Again just. All the platonic, non-familial (Pike n Grog count. to me. buddies <3) relationships are so scant, which is especially hard on characters who lean on that so hard! Grog and Keyleth especially are hurt by this. Does Keyleth have a single conversation (not quip, conversation) that isn't with Vax? And in group contexts she only loudly brings up her distrust of Raishan without any of the solid backbone it has in fact. (Also her going from Raishan was right last time we should trust her now / She betrayed us! Knew it! / oh maybe she didn't and I should apologize. girl. come on. please)

I have Concerns about 'late Game of Thrones teleportation' syndrome happening here. Scanlan goes from Wildemount back to Whitestone (which are completely different continents) with no explanation. Kash and Zahra make it to Emon (again, different continent to Issylra) just in the nick of time. Which, sure, would take a couple of days to carve Percy a nice likeness (but you have a druid who can manipulate stone right there), and if Kash and Zahra changed their minds and set out as soon as Vax talked to them they might make it! But uh. There's a lot of transport that's omitted, while the scenes give the impression everything is happening within a short period of time. And a lot of these conversations are one-on-ones with the relevant characters without acknowledging they couldn't be there without magical transport. Where is Allura or Gilmore or Keyleth in the back of these shots twiddling their thumbs 'hey can we teleport to the next person on our HELP US list'?

IDK what's going on with Kash. He's likely gonna be used as a lead-in to Something to rez Percy (and him?) but. That quick buildup of him being too carefree to getting smushed was very transparent and Zahra's grief didn't feel earned (though it WAS baller. yes they made them bleed girl <3).

The fact Vax didn't ask him At All about the resurrection ritual in the Tomb stuns me tho. You think Vax remembered the offhand comment Kash made about the body needing to be warm while his sister was dead? We as an audience could have used a reminder, and Vax too. Because anyone who Doesn't remember this one line from S2 is Extra frustrated at everyone for being stupid.

Raishan or Ripley being moved to be the 'Vox Machina, united, with all their Vestiges' fight is... hmn. You could argue Raishan has solid buildup (what with the cameo in Brimscythe's lair), and it does follow campaign canon. She lacks the devastating power to justify the use of all the Vestiges (tbh given Thordak it might feel like a curbstomp unless her necromantic plans are successful)... but I could see it working. But why the fuck has Ripley escaped A THIRD TIME. Percy even duped her twice! How many times are we gonna do that song and dance?

If anything, I'd have moved some Ripley stuff here. If she escapes so be it but VM putting the fate of the world on hold to avenge their friend, THEN have Percy be back for Thordak, would be tasty.

... wait does this mean Percy might not have Cabal's Ruin by the final dragon fight of the season? ffs-

DID NO ONE LOOT CABAL'S RUIN FROM THE FACTORY.

Thordak fight was baller, having all our NPCs there to worry about? a bit much. Cass why are you here. Go home before Whitestone loses its last de Rolo.

Also. Thordak my dude I know you're insane. mad even. but uh... you sent your children into battle. A TON have already died by the time you sadly nuzzle the hatchlings. This was kinda your fault. There's a reason animals don't send their babies into combat. then again you're a large reptile who talks about milk so what do I, a reptile researcher, know -

(Don't give me that crap about reptiles being bad parents we have several snakes who require maternal attendance after birth or they're Asocial Weirdos, crocodilians are VERY goo parents, and there are social lizards too.)

'fix him - FIX HIM' being gutted fucking killed me :c

I sure hope Pike's 'IT'S ME' was uh. about faith in herself. Not abandoning the god she spent all of S1 figuring out how to devote herself to. While wearing the Vestige associated with another god. the vestige that explicitly made this possible and not a nuke fire falls u all die tpk. haha. ha. (@/burr-ell)

Yes yes yes I know the voiceover and visuals fill in for 'I hear my mother in the morning. Fuck you'. but. idk. Felt like the grief of that moment was taken out of it? Also it's a banger line

Raishan's little killsteal attempt being bumped from Vorugal to Thordak was tasty! Go green girl go! ... except it did nothing but set up a few quiet moments before she turned on everyone again.

The amount of times I'm seeing things happen Again in this is... not great.

Glintshore is Not Glinting. Where is my broken glass difficult terrain?

Perc'ahlia arc fuckin impeccable tho. Delicious

And Pike got lots of fun and stunning moments so far! And Grog takin down the lair!

I love a lot of this though. The hallucination gas. Percy vs Ripley in the factory was so cool. Percy downright being Put in a Box for a while. VEX'S CONVERSATION WITH SYLDOR!!! SO MUCH!! Her being the leader and feeling so responsible for all this, and seeing herself become her father! ELAINA BACKSTORY! Scanlan leaving the party only to miss Kaylie too! Thordak being A Dad! Percy's death/Vex's grief being the catalyst for Vaxleth! The animation was fucking stellar - Vax killing Thordak, Percy's death, Pike mastering the Plate.

I don't have concrete thoughts on how I'd restructure the episodes/season (seasons?) to better balance platonic and romantic relationships, and utilize the changes to their fullest potential. But damn if the temptation to do ANOTHER canon divergence rewrite / exploration of cause and effect to make things hit a bit more nicely... make myself a challenge to only use X amount of scenes per episode/chapter, to try and match the difficulty of adapting this to television... idk

[confuse-the-masses]

TLOVM Season 3 spoilers (Also Campaign 1 / Potential finale spoilers)

I'm so confused as to why people think Scanlan staying in Wildemount to see Kaylie was the show's adaptation of bard's lament. There was literally no indication of that.

Scanlan still needs to have an actually positive conversation with her and promise that he won't die. This is clearly still set up for bard's lament later.

They've been setting up a big fallout since season 2, narratively we still haven't seen the payout for that. I'm genuinely so confused as to why so many people seem to think that was it? I promise you it wasn't

[essektheylyss]

hot take: "Angel of Small Death and the Codeine Scene" goes SO hard and of all of Hozier's songs, it gets absolutely NO credit for slapping as much as it does.

[utilitycaster]

The thing that gets me abt the framework of downfall and the way Ludinus(and some ppl in the tags who seemingly are trying really hard to roleplay Ludinus) read it is that they're like "look at how the gods meddled and laid low to destroy this bastion of human achievement, they had no right and should have let themselves be systematically exterminated/have the world burn instead" when. Setting aside the revelation that the gods who struck down Aeor made themselves mortal to do it-- as in, they were on the exact playing fields of humans when they made their move and it wasn't some huge peacocking of power against upstart humans to strike them out of the sky-- the Divergence is going to happen. We KNOW the Divergence is going to happen. The gods are going to create the divine gate and remove any chance that they can ever do something like this again. "Blaugh, look at them meddle and plot-" and? Whatever they do, we know that the sun will shine once more. Melora, as brutal as she is as the starved Asha, will plant a tree of hope in the most destroyed wastes of Wildemount. And they will ensure that the suffering they wrought in the calamity, in Aeor, can never ever repeat the same way they had done it. Which is a HELL of a lot more than can be said for Ludinus who is actively reviving every cycle he can

first off "some ppl in the tags who seemingly are trying really hard to roleplay Ludinus" took me OUT so thank you for that.

I just reblogged a post with a quote from Cooldown that I think is really relevant in understanding the whole story of the gods and how we got to this point but like, just to summarize (and debunk a few things, hopefully) from the beginning of the episode to the end re: the life of the gods:

Gods (possibly aspects of the Luxon?) crash-landed on Exandria BECAUSE of what is all but outright said to be Predathos.

As far as I can tell, no deals were made between the gods and the Titans. The only person who has said this from what I can tell is Asmodeus, who I would not consider a reliable source of truth. Or rather: one might have been made but there's no corroboration that I know of.

They created the people of Exandria and sealed away Predathos both prior to the Schism

The Schism occurred when the Titans decided to attack the people (which to be clear - the people had been there for long enough to build that weird ruin on Ruidus with a portal, like, I would love to know what prompted the fight of the Schism since it had pretty clearly been millennia of coexistence).

The Betrayers decided the move was to leave and start over, and the Primes felt that was a dereliction of duty to the people. That's what the quote is about - it's about the fact that Erathis's motivation for being a Prime Deity isn't "mortals are my blorbos!" it's "we have an obligation to our creations" and more generally that the Prime Deities are invested in their domains for the overall good of Exandria but not necessarily the specific good of Aeor. (Taliesin follows it up with (as Melora) "You'd have to tear me from this fucking planet" w/r/t the idea that you cannot, in fact, destroy your bad first draft simply because it would be more convenient to you.)

Betrayers get sealed, unsealed, events of EXU Calamity occur (notably: the titans are all dead. you can fight about whether this was just or right later but they're gone and killing other people won't bring them back; the titans are largely used as a pearl-clutching prop by people with no arguments that are perhaps actually relevant to the current situation), and perhaps 50 or 60 years into the conflict the gods call a truce re: Aeor's Obtenebrator and commit to decades of living as mortals (and therefore limiting themselves considerably)

And so here we are

And I think this really gets to the point. Because ultimately, the argument in favor of leaving Aeor be is "when someone points a gun at you, lay down and die" and the argument in favor of the Betrayers is "when someone tells you to abandon your (living) obligations for them, do so." The former is despairing and nihilistic and the latter selfish and, well, a betrayal.

There is something profoundly nihilistic about Ludinus, for all he talks about freeing people and a better world. He's destroyed a city of innocents. He's indoctrinated hundreds if not thousands of people and many of them have died in his service; he's the architect of an empire and many wars in its name and is actively working with a second one. He's been killing fey and he's even physically given himself over to the cause. There is no crime or sin people attribute to the gods that he has not done himself in measures beyond nearly every other mortal. Like, I really think he's at a point where he just is unwilling to "lose" even though he has a friendless life and a legacy of violence and has destabilized the entire world and the weave of magic itself. I think he has to believe there's something on this Occultus Thalamus for him because if there isn't, he, like the Prime Deities, probably can't just pick up and start over. All he has left is to give in to just letting the world burn in the hopes that at least he gets the satisfaction of what he hates burning with him.

Basically, sounds like a rough time to try to roleplay him in the tags.

Something else you (and others) bring up is that amid all the "history is written by the victors" the story of Aeor and of the gods has actually painted them as far harsher. The story doesn't say that they were first chased to Exandria unwillingly and did not come in conquest; the story, as this post notes, evokes vast divine might striking down a city from the heavens and not like, living in fragile mortal forms during one of the most dangerous times in history and arguing amongst each other over how they can save both themselves and Aeor and if that's even possible. Like, even if you see the gods as the victors of this story rather than simply the survivors, the "unedited" version of the story makes them far more sympathetic.

You also mention the Divine Gate and that's a really interesting thing to me because the existing status quo of Exandria is actually remarkably nascent if you think about it. The Founding had gods, titans, and mortals. Post Schism had the Prime deities and mortals (and it is worth noting this is when the people of Exandria became the most technologically advanced; you want to talk about the Titans and Betrayers, you need to cover that the price of the wonders of the Age of Arcanum was that they were not present). Calamity had all the gods and mortals again, and the current era is the first where the gods are behind the gate. It's kind of a compromise between all the things that have tried to destroy one another - Betrayers and Primes are separated but all are free within their realms and can indirectly contact mortals; technically, so can Predathos. None can directly be on Exandria. Is it ideal? No. It's a compromise, and the sealed can become unsealed (which, consistently, goes very badly) but it's the option that doesn't involve the total annihilation of anyone. Ludinus seeks, by setting off this horrible cycle again, to undo that fragile imperfect compromise with a goal of wholesale slaughter. He provides no option for the gods other than "die by my hand" when even some of the gods were desperately trying to find other options for Aeor as of a day prior to its destruction. He's simply wallowed in his trauma for centuries, becoming colder and more unfeeling and less empathetic and more arrogant than the gods he accuses of the same flaws.

[annemarieyeretzian]

allura standing and stating “I put forth my recommendation for the mighty nein of wildemount to be set to [the assassination of the weave mind]. their experience, skills, and resilience to our enemy’s strengths makes them our standout choice.” (bonus: the entire cast reacting like this)