#your music this week was: moon river by henry mancini; freedom 1990 by george michael; and space oddity by david bowie

[utilitycaster]

Wizard Breakdown Tracker, Episode 138

I think it is easy to forget that literally every episode that aired in the year of Our Common Era, 2021, has taken place over the span of *Spurt voice* eleven days. Well. It has. And, indeed, the last seven episodes have covered roughly two days.

The reason this is only about wizard NPCs is because they serve as a sort of audience surrogate in that they are nerds who don't go outside, vs. D&D PCs who see more shit in two to eleven days than most people would see in a lifetime; case in point, Essek's current state of shock. This is also making it very hard to check in with the other wizards. But also this is not about accuracy, even though I am usually right about everything. This is about...honestly I'm not sure, other than wizards.

What I'm trying to say is:

Caleb Widogast is a PC, not an NPC, and is not included in these strange statistics*.

Currently sidelined: Pumat Sol, Oremid Hass, Ludinus Da'leth, Astrid Beck, E_dwulf Grieve

Obligatory self-indulgent Vess Derogna song parody: Tomb....takers, killed you in your room, they’ll end the world soon but hey/you cult wizard, lost in a blizzard, whatever you’ve done, well, murdered, you’ll stay

Trent Ikithon: I am 100% serious that while I have made Narrative Sense In Actual Play Media in the rock on which I will cast my Temple of the Gods, if the final boss is Trent riding on Uk'otoa...I won't be mad. Like does it seem tonally off? Yes; Critical Role is not humorless high fantasy by any means** but they are not actively trying to seem like something that should be airbrushed on a van, usually. But will it be pretty awesome? Yeah.

Trent on the other hand is pretty fucking mad, presumably, because Caleb continues to leave him on read and also picked up a little something called Mind Blank, which is actually useful and not in fact No Thoughts Head Empty. With that said I don't think it's increased; I think we're just at a steady simmer.

Conclusion: 7/10.

Essek Thelyss: Okay I am a dabbler in both cosmic horror and mathematics; I enjoy many elements of both but am an expert in neither. But if I may drop the jokes for a second, how incredible is it that in this alien setting of a city that is an unwitting and unwilling amalgam of consciousnesses, with all the trappings of classic cosmic horror, two people decided to take a scientific risk with things seen as forbidden or foreign by their respective cultures...and won.

I don't know what will befall Essek and he's clearly still having a pretty rough time of it, even though unlike Caduceus I don't think he was brought to the brink of profanity again, yet; but no matter what happens at least he'll have the nat 20 of instant long rest. No matter what happens...he was right about dunamancy. Fucking ironic how much potential the dynasty is wasting, really.

With that said he does have a red eye now even though all he (and, to be fair, Fjord, Veth, and Caduceus as well) did was fight off an eldritch abomination without rolling what must have been like a 20 Wisdom save DC. Like, he (and Fjord, Veth, and Caduceus) do not deserve this. You think this man has a positive wisdom score? In this economy? (actually, he might, I say, looking at Caleb 'Wisdom Ostensibly 16' Widogast).

Conclusion: keeping him at 8/10. It's funny because he is fully on an emotional roller coaster but it's averaging out to about an 8/10 each time; it's just that he's constantly beset by horrors beyond imagination and really terrible rolls but also incredible validation of his beliefs that had so long been ignored. The man's mental state is basically a sine wave, which interestingly enough is itself influencing his mental state.***

Yussa Errenis: The Prodigal Most Interesting Man in Exandria returneth! Wensforth, play Freedom! 836 PD. You know, he should probably feel a little bit of shame, because he should know better, but also he probably does not. Anyway please enjoy the lines I had for Yussa while he was trapped in Cognouza that I did not ultimately use:

aha no don’t get your consciousness sucked into an ancient city you’re so sexy

Here am I floating in an ancient and terrible world-devouring city/far out in the planes/Threshold crests are blue and there’s nothing I can do

Making bad choices and joining the voices it’s...YUSSA ERRENIS

Conclusion: I'm going to say 6/10 but rapidly decreasing. Also Wensforth has had several days to clean the tower...maybe he just won't tell Yussa? He probably will though.

Allura Vyesoren: she's going to facepalm so long that Kima starts timing it, isn't she. She's going to get a series of messages like "hey so the Mighty Nein seem to be doing well! they freed me from the city which sucked me in like some spicy ramen when I did an astral projection...also something happened in my tower?" She's going to just stare out the window for a long moment. She is going to ask herself, much as I have many a time, what the fuck is in the water in Wildemount.

Conclusion: 3/10. Hey, at least she got some news on the Mighty Nein and the city!

Known Gem Wizard Hotsauce Lutefisk: consider: after over 35 years, give or take, in your own perception of time, trapped in a gem, you finally come across some people. Consider that one of them apparently can't resist a big shiny wizard trap. Now consider that this guy went into your +1 Demiplane of Wizard Murdering AND got his mind fully schlorped by Aeorians and yet you are still, inconceivably, stuck in this fucking gem. This is where he draws the line? At a teensy little bodily possession? What the fuck dude.

Conclusion: I'm pretty sure he's already a few large handfuls of iron filings short of a component pouch (which is to say, full up on the batshit) already but this cannot be helping.

*this will be the first but probably not the last cosmic horror and/or math joke because I actually forgot to make cat jokes last night, so thoroughly did the Nein demolish Cree. Speaking of Cree's fate...call that a Furrier Transform.

**high fantasy is a complicated distinction and the wikipedia page includes Discworld which does not seem right to me; it also includes the Belgariad, a series for which I have great fondness having inhaled the first three books while sick in bed as a fourteen year old and having reread several times, but which is explicitly written by a guy who was like what if I made something as formulaic as possible but also literally everyone is either super sarcastic or a huge moron but anyway imo High Fantasy is actually frequently fucking hilarious and a sign of the skill of the creator(s) is whether it's hilarious by accident or on purpose.

***something something Heisenberg uncertainty principle. I had a joke here but it got very convoluted and that is actually not a pun although if you understand why it could be a pun, good work.