Hello folks! Welcome to 4-Sided Dive. I am Matthew Mercer,
you're 23rd-- [phone chime]
--tavern keeper in the... One second. What? Sorry, someone just left a
box of used billowy vests outside. Can we just hold for a second? I'll be right back, hold on. (mischievous music) Oh my God, that worked twice. Amazing. (laughs) So why don't I take it from here? Let's start this over. Hey creators, welcome to 4-Sided Dive. I am Aabria Iyengar, your
official 23rd tavern keeper. I will be spilling all the hot goss about having the Spider Queen go all Yoko on the Crown Keepers. But before that, let's talk about the big
smiley bummer in the room. FCG heroically sacrificed
himself to save his friends and finally kill Otohan Thull. Thull, Thull? I don't watch the show,
how do you pronounce it? Group: Thull. Great, thank you. I knew it, I just like
when people yell at me. Hey Otohan, when you get to the hells, tell Zerxus I said 'sup. Sam Riegel couldn't make it today, but his loving wife, Liam O'Brien, is here to chat about it and more. Oh yes, more. Because Orym is not the only Crown Keeper going through a dark time. Aimee Carrero is here
to tell us of all about Opal and her full Hot Topic
betrayer God makeover that we are all living
for, except for Cyrus. And speaking of Cyrus, Dorian is back and he's looking oh so good after losing all that
excess brother weight. You're welcome. And when Matt realizes that
the box of vests does not exist, he'll come back and tell us what Dariax had for breakfast or something. What a little guy. Okay, wait, what happened? I went outside to look for vests and all I found was a little
box of Sam's old wigs, so... Hey, don't worry, buddy. I got this. Why don't you go sip some cocoa and relax. We'll see. Sure.
Yeah. Hey, do you wanna play
some For the Queen later and maybe just get some chicky nuggies? Matt: Yeah, let's do it. That's what I'm talking about! Welcome to 4-Sided Dive! Let's do a fucking show, baby! Welcome back! Let's begin the night with
our open discussion segment. What the fuck is up with that? What the fuck is up with that? Actually. Oh, we got a menu? We have a little menu out. Aimee: Ooh. So I'm just gonna
start us off for the table with just a little light discussion of FCG's fucking sacrifice. What happened and why did that happen? We weren't there for that. We weren't there.
Explain yourselves! I did watch the moment. Yeah. Sam has a habit of doing ridiculous things that none of us expect.
Oh yeah. And dragging the emotion out of all of us like a good friend does at the table. So fuck you, Sam. Mm-hm. He strikes when the iron is hot. Yeah.
Yeah. It was the exact right. As much as I was like, oh,
I'm emotionally devastated and I didn't expect
to be just sort of crying in my office alone at night watching it. It was the exact right
emotional beat for that moment. And he's a sniper for that. It was so good. He did it with a smile too, the whole time. Yeah.
If you were to watch it on mute or whatever, it would just be him like,
and then everyone going. Aimee: You're like, "What is he saying?" Yeah. You guys did start doing a I got runner up in a beauty pageant. Yeah, yeah, yeah. (Aimee speaking indistinctly) It's the Julian Julianne Moore cry. Aabria: Yes! Is that too old of a reference? I don't even know. Not for us. Never seen a more
beautiful person cry so ugly. Yeah.
What about Claire Danes? That's neck and neck. Aabria: Oh my god. Yeah, that was rough. When did you know it was happening? Like when you like, oh, he's gonna do it? Oh, he's doing it, he doing it. Oh, the words I aimed the spell on my core. Oh, oh. I remember at the top of the night at the top of that fight kicking off going, we are gonna kick this woman's ass. We are leveled up. We figured out tricks. We're gonna work well together. I mean, I don't know
about the rest of the table, but I specifically was
feeling very confident about thrashing that woman and have it coming at a cost. But not in what I think was
one of the two or three times in the history of the show where we came close to everybody going out. I gotta be so clear. I'm so proud of you. You beat the brakes off of them. And I was just like, you
ever have that energy where you're like, God, I
wish I could just send Matt a video of me being
like, I'm cheering for her! (laughs) Damn her little backpack. Here's the thing. When you've been doing this for a while, especially with you guys, every new group has its own unique tricks and at certain levels, the
power that's at your disposal kind of jumps.
Yeah. And so for me, learning the balance, which each one of those jumps, it's its own kind of
experience that takes a while. And a lot of it is trusting that you guys will find a way through. And when it comes to
encounters like with Otohan, which is meant to have a terrifying impact because the character has been built up for the majority of the campaign. I don't want it to be a
combat that is easily fought. And you guys have, there
have been many battles, especially as of late, that I'm like, this is gonna be a nice challenging test and you just kind of
wipe the floor with it. Which is great. But that just means I have to make sure that I tweak it with enough
surprises to where walking in with that sort of, I don't
wanna say arrogance, but confidence can be
met with a level of fear that I felt is true to the character. And to be fair, I rolled
really well for her that fight. And you guys had a rough time with some of the rolls. Liam: I rolled great. Matt: You rolled actually pretty great. You were doing great. Do you ever roll poorly? Sure.
I don't remember that. All the time.
I don't remember that. Not that night, though. (laughs) I love the energy.
It's pretty good. The juice is good. But it wasn't enough. Liam: No. So how do you feel about that? (laughs) It wasn't enough!
I'm sorry. One little halfling. I felt a lot of energy coming
from you and I just wanted to-- Even when you nuked, when she slash you
nuked Chetney at the top, I was still like, whatever. We'll pull it. I mean, we could get
that wolf back up probably. This is fine, it's fine. And it wasn't until the two
thirds mark where I was like, she's still got a lot of stuff left. (laughs) Here's the thing, a lot
of classes in the game have many tricks up their sleeve. Especially as sorcerers, druids, anything that has mass
hit spells that do AOE or crowd control and stuff like that. It's challenging to
make a fighter character a solo encounter--
Yeah. That has a lot of utility to it. And so for me, the
challenge of Otohan Thull, the entire campaign
was to build a fighter class solo encounter that had enough utility that befits a dangerous fight against an entire group
of seven characters. For sure. And find the right kind of kit balance with the narrative that'll make it work. And so I went in making her very dangerous knowing that would be the case. It just so happened that
when the combat did arrive, it arrived on the cusp of
some of your characters having expended some of your resources from previous encounters. And a lot of luck, a lot of
tactical things just worked out to be in a tough, tight scenario. And it was pretty close. I think at the end of it,
she had under 40 hit points when FCG did make the sacrifice. So there could have been a
path where you would've won, but there might have
been more than one lost in that process. And if your rolls had been slightly worse and my friend's rolls slightly better.
True. (laughs) Well, I was rolling pretty consistently around the 10s mark, like averaging.
Yeah. She just has massive bonuses. So good. I know with Orym who's a fighter and I know his rules real well, but it's all about focusing
on one person almost always. And whittling down one person. So to make a fighter
be able to wipe the floor with multiple people at once, I mean, you wanted her to have the
weight of a fight with a dragon. Which, she did. So she did her trick with
1,000 hits and I was like, okay, there's the action surges out of the way. And then you said, okay, for a second action surge.
And I went-- Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I had to grab my chair. And then when she pulled
out a massive healing potion- Aabria: That juice! I was ready to meet you in the parking lot. (laughs) That's valid. That was a special healing potion too. That was supreme plus. That was for NPCs healing. Hell yeah. I bet the group chat
that night was (laughs), wouldn't have wanted to be on it. Lots of laughs.
Yeah. I definitely wanna- Aimee: Just a sad sack group of... Oh, yeah.
Oh. But I do wanna shout out 'cause you brought up something really cool and I like the parallel between Orym and Otohan specifically because I do remember
one of my favorite things coming out of EXU Prime
was watching how carefully and meticulously you
had crafted your fighter. It is very easy for fighters who are like, I do a hit with my weapon,
for that to get like really... It'll get old fast. And I was like, how is he
gonna come outta the gate at the top of a three digit campaign and have that feel good and unique? And your abilities as a storyteller to infuse all of Orym's
actions and tactics on the map with all of the immediacy
of an action movie that I love to watch was so cool. So it felt so right that
this was the campaign where we have Otohan who is that bigger- Mixed fighter. Yeah, exactly. Where you're like, oh, this is the monstrous version
of Orym skillset and ability and just how lethal
and terrifying he can be. So it felt very good in that way that there was this bit
of a foil between the two. And yeah, you're right, Otohan
stood with the same gravitas of facing down the big monstrous threats of a dragon and absolutely stomped. And it felt so great to like, yeah, that was a harrowing
fight, but by the end of it, it felt exactly right for
the story of this campaign of what it takes to win and what you are all willing to sacrifice and who does it and
who steps up here first, like our faithful caregiver being the one. So good. I thought at best just a
couple people were gonna, before Sam pulled his genius 5d move. I thought maybe a couple people, and not Orym, were gonna make it away. And I didn't know what we were gonna do. I don't know if we were gonna... I thought we'd start over and bring in a bunch of new characters. That's what I thought.
Really? I thought this was the
closest we'd ever, ever come. I mean, there'd been a couple other times where it felt close, but I
felt like this was the closest 'cause I could see you sweating towards the end of it as well. Yeah, it was definitely
one of those scenarios where circumstantially, I set
up an encounter in my mind with building a skill set for an enemy that I feel is dangerous, building an environment
that has opportunities at its disposal for both
the players and the villains to change things into their favor and try and throw a bunch
of tools and utilities out there. A lot of that just kinda
gets forgotten in the chaos. And some things surprise me, some things surprise the players. And then at a certain
point, the scales start tipping in a way that the nerves start hitting. And I don't wanna pull the punches. I don't want to put a
scenario where I be throttle off because then it robs the rest of our game of the stakes.
Yeah. And the victories that you do get. And we all trust each other to know that no matter what happens, we can continue to tell the story. We'll find the meaning in
these moments and these losses. I've always said before, if it
character dies in a campaign and a player is really upset about it, I've done it in home campaigns too. I will work with them to find a way to restore the character. But we are also the kind of players that if it feels like a
natural satisfying end to that story, then we
love and embrace that. We run towards it.
Yeah. And I could feel that, and I think we've all had
conversations about it, we all feel that way and
excited at running at that danger. But I don't think anyone exemplified it quite like Sam did in that moment. I had forgotten about that
unintentional Chekhov's gun when I mentioned
his core was explosive. Aimee: Yeah. It was more meant to be a reference to all the other Arcane
cores that were being utilized to source the power of a
lot of the Basseryn creations. But this was an Aeorian tech
and is much more powerful. And I just like the idea of being like, you got a bomb in you. That's fun! Yeah!
Yeah. I'd forgotten about it. And in a very- Liam: Filed that away for a rainy day, Of course he did. And in a very Sam Riegel way pulls that out of his ass last minute. And I was just like, you're
gonna make me DM this, you motherfucker. (laughs) Oh, I love it. It was so good. It's the equivalent of
watching, I mean, not really, but when you watch, like
we were talking about SNL or something and someone breaks character and you're like, oh, they
really know how funny this is. And just seeing people cry at the table, especially Matt, who I
don't think I've seen cry. I could be wrong, I don't know. I've cried at the table a few times, but usually it's at the end of a campaign. Yeah, yeah, right. Yeah, I don't know. But I just remember, I don't know, I mean, I know you guys so
I know that it really matters. But it's nice for the
audience every now and then to peek behind the curtain and know just how much these
characters mean to the people that bring them to life
because it costs something. And it makes something
like that worth watching and worth investing in if you know that it costs
people something to let them go or to bring them to life. Watching the panic on everyone else's face at that table as they're
all trying to conspire to find a way to prevent it from happening when it's already happening.
Yep. It makes it more heartbreaking. Yep.
Yeah. The scramble.
Fuck you, Sam. You know what's crazy?
I love you. I remember before I'd
ever really even heard of Critical Role, I knew that Sam, 'cause he used to be my voice
director for Elena of Avalor. And so I knew of D&D through Sam. I knew you guys played, but I didn't know anything other than that. And I remember one day coming in to work and everyone at Out Loud
Studios where we recorded, it was so bummed out. And when Sam walked in, they were like, "Man, Sam, this sucks man." And I remember thinking
like, "What, did somebody die?" And he was like, "Yeah,
one of our characters in Campaign Two died." And then I remember it affecting people that I'd worked with for years and who were creators at the time and really knew the game. And I remember him kind
of having to console them a little bit and now knowing he's the one that sort of pulled the
plug on his own character is just, ugh. Ugh. But also- Aimee: It was the day after it had aired. It was a Friday or something. Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, I remember that evening and morning after very well. Oh my goodness. I think what I love about it too, for me as a GM and
watching the dice tell a story and ever one is kind of
following where it's gonna take us, but try and prevent the worst outcomes. Sam taking the opportunity
to take control of that and kind of put the chapter
close in his character story in a meaningful way,
it's a rare opportunity. Many characters die
and characters have died, and even in our campaigns
that are just circumstantial. You know, the dice wasn't in their favor and the final blow took 'em. And it is a sad moment of loss and vengeance and processing. This truly was the most prominent moment of heroic sacrifice that I've been able to GM in a long time.
Yeah. Where the player was fully like, no, I'm choosing to do this. And with a shit-eating grin
kind of brought its own end and I think that's why it got me. There were multiple layers as to why it got me so hard in that moment. But it was the reality of the culmination of that character story then. It had to be FCG in a weird way 'cause he was kind of this
beacon of joy and comfort and kind of this thread that kept a lot of these broken things together throughout.
Yes. And for it to be him,
I'm excited to see how... Because there's gonna be a
lot more processing to come. I don't even think the characters have really had enough
time to even talk about it. Liam is getting ready for those episodes. I think all of 'em have like, yay, well, we've cheered a little bit and we've had moments to talk about it, but I don't think you all have really had a moment yet to do that. We've been back on the planet for a couple hours or something. Well, Sam knows what we all know, which is that characters
die, but stories never do. Yeah.
So. Beautiful. A great story beat. It really was.
Yeah. I'm proud of him.
For the books. Proud of him. Fuck you, Sam. Fuck you, Sam. Yeah, extra fuck you. Because hey, let me be so clear, we're going to kind
of look behind the veil. We knew that this fun
little crossover moment was going to happen a little in advance, so there was that moment
where the episode dropped and I'm like, he did what? Motherfucker! I know where you live! What energy have you cursed me with? What? It did definitely--
Yeah. It really was particularly
horrible for you. Bro, to be like, what
energy am I going to... Oh no.
It's like taking the baton and wiping your ass with
it, then handing it over. Cool, great. (screams)
Don't touch your eye. Yeah, this was sort of a narrative pinkeye from my erstwhile husband, Sam Riegel.
Yes, 100%. So good.
This is payback for the Calamity.
For what? I don't know.
He did that to me. Yeah, he did that to you. Dammit. He did the same thing. That's right, shit. Dammit, Sam. Aabria: I am thrice fucked. You should've stuck to your
guns and just did a pub crawl. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
No acknowledgement. The Crown Keepers are at a resort. We're having a great time. We're all back at Taste of Tal'Dorei. Yeah, just vibing. Wine needs life to live, and
just fucking hanging out. But I do want to say, as we
talk about the transition point, also, the hardest part of that handoff was, Kyle knows, because I almost fell over
listening to you send off that Sending to Dorian.
Yeah. I was like, okay, I have
to come in with big energy, but Liam's making me cry. It gets so quiet.
Yeah. What is he saying? I'm only getting vibes. And they're all a bummer. It's a little bit that monitor, because we're all
watching you guys as well, going like, what?
Yeah. What? It's that one monitor. We made you word for
word repeat, during the break, we're like, what did you say exactly? But no one does sad boy like Orym. Orym's sad boy energy really is-- Started off the campaign pretty good. Fuck you.
Yeah. I remember one of our first communications, you were like, I'm going
to play a lighter character. And then you sent me--
He was, though. He was. And then you sent me the backstory, and I'm like, dead husband?
But he was okay. Is that okay?
But he was okay. But he was over it.
Okay, interesting. I wouldn't say he was
over it, but he was okay. He was in a... Listen, I'm the one in the skin I know how I felt at the time.
Yeah. And I felt like I was doing all right. He was near finding acceptance
with where things were. But then all the wounds got opened up. Yeah, literally opened up.
The way she said that? That was great.
Was it? I'm so proud.
Why? You opened a wound as you said it. And all the wounds were opened up. It was perfect.
Right? Yeah. Aabria: But I think there is something-- Well--
Go ahead. I just want to hug him.
In campaign one, when Vax was like, take me instead, I didn't think that Matt
was going to flip that and put us on a roller coaster
for the rest of the campaign. In campaign two, when we
were preparing, and I told Matt, I want to be part of this wizard school where they just rotted his
brain and awful things happened because of it, I didn't
know that those people were going to be running the government and be at the center of the whole thing. Oh yeah, could you imagine
the thing you asked for being part of your game?
And in campaign three, I talked about a sad thing
that happened in the past, but I didn't think that some
asshole was going to be-- Some ash hole.
--testing the Tempest to see if he could do all of this
shit that's going on now. Luda.
Listen. Gets meaner and meaner
each time. That's my boy. Matt's good at threading
everything into the sky, and then pulling the sky down.
It's so good. My favorite thing.
I love watching. Orym in particular, of all the characters, because we have a very
kooky group in Bells Hells-- That was so blithely polite. They're so kooky. And you're like, trauma. Yeah, they're all deeply broken characters in their own unique way, and they're a colorful
spectrum of broken characters that find a commonality and
family between each other. Orym is one of the rocks of that group. Yeah. But his is the soldier's journey, you know? Yeah.
His is the person who is called by duty, duty imposed by others, imposed by himself.
Yeah. Imposed by the memory of those he's lost, and what it means to rise up to the heroism that is expected of you.
Yeah. But that takes its toll,
and watching his journey is very interesting and relatable, and I'm loving where it's
been, I'm loving where it's going, and yeah, I'm excited to even see where a post-Otohan processing comes in, too. I think going right into the Crown Keepers gave a moment to talk about it, then return with Dorian to talk about it, I think I'm excited to
explore the real meat now that the adrenaline's starting to fade from that experience and
see what happens next and where you all end up going together. The real repercussions. Yeah, there is something very fun, and now I'm going to get
into, god, everything with Opal, because you absolutely crushed this. But in the sort of planning of this, the Crown Keepers' little insert, there was an eye turned
specifically to the fact that Orym is the one that
constantly reaches out to Dorian, and having Orym on this really fun, I don't want to call it a
corruption or a degradation arc, but it's fun to watch Orym put things away in him for the duty. He has to keep making space for that, and it's crowding out empathy
and kindness and softness. You are watching someone
shave off his soft edges to be what the size of the fight, as he gets a bigger and bigger view of the nature and direness of the threat, he's like, oh, I have
to lose a little bit more. And watching that is so fun, and it became a really interesting, is
there a way to sow this into Dorian's experience
coming back to Bells Hells? So as we were planning and figuring out what to do with the handoff, a big part of that was trying
to give a parallel experience to the sort of ending of the Crown Keepers and going off of that
perfect little arc you gave episodes and episodes ago
of, Opal's getting pretty dark. Oh, what a little gift.
We'll come back to you. And then getting to
snatch that out of the air and be like, all right, hey everybody, we're going to be here for
the equivalent of one episode. We don't have time to talk. It's a fight. So I just want to start off
by shouting you out, Aimee, for being so game for a all on one PVP. You know that's not new kid shit, right? It was so good. You crushed it. Yeah, but as someone who perpetually feels like the new kid, I definitely... I just love... I know the mechanics
are not my strongest suit, but as far as roleplaying--
Hold on. --I feel very comfortable
in the roleplay aspect of it, and I knew that at the very least, because you mentioned
it was going to be a battle, but there were going to be moments of maybe flashback and stuff like that, so I knew that I was going to get breaks where I could touch back in with the confident point
with me as a performer, so I knew that, I mean, what's
the worst that can happen? She fucking dies, I don't
know. It would be very sad. But I knew that I was going to make it out of the studio alive,
and that's all that matters. As an actor, I'm like, I'm going to live. That's good perspective.
You know? Right.
I should borrow that. Sometimes you just got to think about, what am I going to eat after?
Yeah. I'm going to give
myself a nice little treat. I'm going to get some Taco
Bell after, no matter what. What was it like when
you had to go sit by yourself on one side of the table? It was cold. It was cold. But also, I feel like it
was a necessary thing to really show how Opal
has, even though she wants to reach out to her
friends, she physically can't. I thought it was a really
cool way of showing that, of showing how isolated she's become, even if it's in her own mind.
Yeah. That is so crowded, so how
could it be isolated? But is. So it felt cool, but it felt
cold, for real, physically. I think she said, "Turn up
the heat in the studio." But I also knew that
you'd said something like, oh, do you want someone to join you? I can get you a friend, or something. And I was like, oh no, they're only going to
come here if they die. So I'm cool sitting here by myself, because I didn't want any
of the Crown Keepers to die. That was my fun little, oh, the whole goal is to
clear the bench for you, and then as dropped people, I'd be like, do you want a buddy? Here's your accursed specter. Yeah yeah yeah.
Yeah. That would've been cool, but no, definitely not with any of my pals. But yeah, it felt cool,
actually. And it was cool to see. You were so good, and held
a side of the table on your own in a way that, let me
be clear, I don't know if they'll ever show your
character sheet, your stuff. You beat ass with that build. We had a conversation about it. We did.
And I didn't build it for you.
Yeah. And I was like, oh,
that's a lot of the stuff I was grabbing for Laerryn from Calamity. Ooh, which is the ultimate compliment. Thanks.
I love that. But it was really fun to see how absolutely menacing that build was, and know that you were going
to be fighting tooth and nail. The actual RP of it was,
please don't make me use any of this.
Yeah yeah yeah. And it was such a beautiful
dichotomy of the things you are equipped to do and
the top of your intelligence, I know how all of these players tick. Yeah.
There's a thing in fighting when you run games, and you're like, oh, if I'm just a random dragon, I don't know who the sort of easy buttons, who's the weak link here.
Yeah. That if I take you down, then everyone else will spiral faster, but the idea that Opal and
the Spider Queen and Ted would all have that intel
and really try to lean into, I just couldn't knock Bless off of Matt, which is so fucking upsetting. I can't even look you in the eye right now. Can't do it.
I'm still Blessed. It's so fucked up.
He's still blessed. No matter where he is.
Hashtag blessed. Hashtag blessed,
Dariax, all day, all night. You know what?
Dammit. You cannot knock "The Girl From Ipanema" out of that man's head. I spent three days singing
"The Girl From Ipanema". Rude! Well, the thing is, you
roll so bad as Dariax. Oh yeah.
It's crazy. So he's got to have something
that keeps him alive, and-- But he made every con check
to keep it. I was like, how? He was built for that.
Motherfucker! War Caster, Dwarven Constitution. He's like, can't do much,
but one thing I can do, hold a spell.
Yeah. That little d4! By the way, you saved Dariax's life. He was not going to leave.
Yeah. I was fully prepared to take
a last stand there for Opal. I could never do it. I couldn't do it. That Mass Suggestion was clutch. That was so good.
Thanks. As soon as you did
that, I was like, oh damn. Yeah, he's going to go. He's going to go. That's the ultimate compliment. I was in the lobby yelling, kill them! I know.
Kill them! I could not live with myself. Why? It would be so fun.
I love PVP. It's fun if it's... I mean, it was fun anyway, but I feel like I would've
really gone for it if it was a one shot or whatever. Yeah. It was, bitch.
No, I know, but not with these people
that we've known for so long. You'll know them again.
I just couldn't do it. But I did a lot of research
on trying to find stuff that was not crowd
control, and not dangerous, and I really wish I could've
used that Force Cage. I was so close to using
it. Is that what it's called? Yeah.
Yeah, Force Cage. Motherfucker, that one.
Oh man. I love Force Cage.
I was so ready to use it, and I didn't have the
time or the chance to. But the Mass Suggestion,
I was really pleased with, and I knew going in that your
wisdom and Dorian's wisdom was not the highest.
Nope, we're a couple fools. You know, so I was prepared. I was prepared for Erica and Anj to not be whatever, Yeah.
But yeah, it was cool. I felt really proud of it, but also, I felt a little bit kind of sad that I took you guys
out so early in the game. It wasn't that early.
It wasn't? No, you're good.
Okay. Yeah.
That kind of ties your hands behind your back, but you'll play again. That's the thing.
You know? It's okay.
You'll live. Matt's going to be fine.
You're right. He's going to be fine.
You're right. It's going to be fine. That's okay. All I wanted to do is
frustrate her with Bless, and I already accomplished that. It worked so perfectly.
Anything else was gravy. I came in with so much
red in my fucking ledger, because you killed my character
the last time you ran for me and I was like, I'm going to get his ass. This is the only one I want.
I'm playing the Spider Queen. I'm Ted. I got so much stuff. I can't this Bless off this
motherfucker. (screams) And then halfway through--
Genuinely crying. Also, realizing halfway through, I'm like, okay, if somebody has to die, who is going to really
know shit about this game? And then you asked me again,
who are you most afraid of? And I was like, Dariax. Not true. But I knew that if Matt Mercer was on this side of the
table, it was a fucking wrap. God, that would've
been so fun. I was waiting. That kit on your side would've been bad. Yeah, that's true. He
would've been in character. What are we going to do?
It would've been so good. But I would've loved, at the end, where Dariax was at that pub. Oh my god, you got ghosted.
You got ghosted. That was so heartbreaking.
Bro. And that's the only
reason that I wasn't like, what if I just come in as Deni$e right now? The moment is too good.
So good. That's in my fanfiction, as
soon as that episode ended, he just got grappled by
something he didn't see, and it was absolutely Deni$e.
Oh, 100%. That's a post-campaign moment. Maybe we can flash back to it.
Post-campaign, yes. We've got to do a stinger.
Totally. Yeah, we can totally do that. Yes, yes.
Headcanon accepted. It was just too beautiful of a moment not to, to get in there, but yeah. In my head, when Dariax
and Dorian made it back to Keyleth and the Air Ashari over there, at Zephrah's bar, in
my head, I'm like, okay, so in my head, I'm like, okay, Dariax can accompany
him probably with Bells Hells, because he's not going to
leave his side at that point, so he can become a helpful side NPC, maybe. Aw, that would've been fun.
In my head, I was immediately doing the math on, well, he made it with him. How can I incorporate him
in a way that feels natural? Okay, and while I'm having
to do the math in my head to try and rationalize the fact that Dariax made it with him to here--
Oh, he's gone. --then Robbie just full-on
took care of it for me in the most heartbreaking way.
Oh, it was heartbreaking. So good.
I could see it play out in my head, I could see the episode if it was a very special
episode of "Growing Pains". Showing off for him.
Aw! He played so well. And then Dad just goes out for cigarettes. Oh no. Damn.
Yeah. But it did feel, as much as I was like, I want to kill everyone
and send Dorian off alone, it did feel very good to be like, the main thing to accomplish,
going back to the kooky bunch of trauma babies, is having
Dorian reenter the campaign with the idea that you left Bells Hells to save your brother, and
he was the only one you lost. Rough, yeah, yeah.
And now you arrive back, FCG's dead, maybe if you had stayed, nothing would have
been different with Cyrus, but maybe FCG would still be here. And that feels like the
perfect, not in a mean way, because I don't want mean
things for these characters. I love them all very much. But when you what people to--
Complications. Yeah, you've got to show up
with some of the same energy as the rest of the group.
Absolutely, totally. Yeah, if you guys have been doing, we did a pedal pub across
Kymal, it was super fun. Yeah, yeah yeah yeah.
You can't have the friend who's like, I just got back
from Vegas, how are you all? Oh, you're all crying. What's happening? Yeah, and part of the reason
I picked the Mass Suggestion, too, is that I knew that we were doing this to sort of deliver Dorian,
or give him the opportunity to go back to Bells Hells,
and I knew that he wouldn't just leave of his own volition.
Yeah. That's not his character,
you know, so I'm like, if I have a chance to use
this, I would definitely use it, and I looked for something that had a high wisdom save or whatever it was. Yeah, you had great
deescalators. It was very good. So I knew he'd be forced to walk. That's not newbie talk. Aabria: Thank you, that's what I'm saying. Thanks. You had the perfect kit to
hit the low-wisdom characters and like I was sitting in the wings, like everything that was
some of my favorite stuff with Morrighan was that idea that she wanted to rebuild her character. She's like, "I didn't wanna be a rogue." She was like, "I look like shit in Kymal. I want that stank off me." I'm like, "Girl, say less." I understand that vibe. Come lean into like being a
Paladin of the Matron of Ravens. Very fun, and then she
was like, "I cast Haste." So I was like, "No."
No, to do. Not like this. (laughing) Not this again. I laughed from this side of the screen. I don't wanna be on the side of it. In my head, I'm just like (evil laughing). Dog. When she was building it,
she's like, and I have daggers. And I'm like, "No! It's a sword." (laughing) It's a sword for no reason.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just, please, please don't
let it just be exactly that. Let's just say the Matron's got a type. She's got a type. Hot, brooding, loves a dagger. Dark hair, dark hair.
Yep. Purvan, Vax...
Kind of a longer ear situation.
Yeah, you know. Yep. Can't blame her.
Yep. But knowing that like
because Erica like locked in with the deity and Anj also was like- That was so cool.
Had like a cool moment with the Wildmother, it felt like a really fun opportunity to talk a little bit about
the bigger themes of the campaign in the
like, hey, it's getting real dark for all of the deities in Exandria, so even if you have this
sort of imposed difference between the good prime
deities and the betrayer gods, when you are facing an existential threat, what is more human
than the desire to persist and what would a prime
deity say in the face of like, "Hey, hey, hey, hey, I understand, she's a bad guy."
She's the worst. Spider queen, the worst.
Yeah. Yeah. Huge bitch.
She's one of us. Yeah, however.
Yeah. I think maybe Opal will be useful, so maybe we'll all let that happen. I don't know, she'll
be fine, it'll be fine. And getting the toy a little bit with the idea that like the Wildmother and the Matron of Ravens might say like, "Hey, just let her cook real quick." Maybe why don't you back
up and like either help out and get into the fight and be a part of it, but don't stop this from happening. Felt like an interesting take and like an extra lever
to have during the fight. And also I feel like that it also goes with what you've been dealing with all campaign, or most of it, which is
do we fight for the gods or do we just let 'em fucking fuck off? I don't know, that's the question. And to have it reach even the
Crown Keepers is a nice way to tie it in, I think to the
storyline of Bell Hells-- Very much so
They've been dealing with. So I hope that people
were able to kind of see between the lines and
at least like pick that up so that it wasn't just
like our friend died, "He, he, here's the Crown Keepers." (laughing) There is a tie in, I hope it becomes clear, but yeah, it was really
fun, it was really fun to do. I like the idea that she's
out there running around like Venom now in service to the Queen. And the war, or whatever
it is that's coming. There's a number of individuals that are in service to the gods as a unit and everything is pointing one direction. Let's go.
I love one direction. (laughing) We're writing up the contract. They're a little pricey, but we're gonna see what we can do. I feel like you can get
'em for a bargain now. It's been... (laughing) You get a good-
The reunion tour. It'll be great. Get the Spice Girls for sure. So getable.
So getable. Well, maybe not Victoria Beckham. Ooh, she's, I don't know. I feel like she's getable. She's gettable.
She's getable. Oh yeah. (laughing) But I'm very much looking
forward to seeing where what happens with Dorian and Orym. What do you mean?
What do you mean? What do you mean?
What do? Do you want me to say it?
Yeah, sure. You all have to fuck before
the end of the campaign. Why would that happen? What?
Why would? Why? Why? Oh, I'm sorry, did, hey,
please smash cut to the pages of AO3 fanfic, thank you so much. Yeah.
And I've read some of it. (laughing) I got nasty Dorian's a charmer. Got nasty quick. Okay, Orym, stop it.
You're a charmer too. You sent the sweetest little messages. He's been sending those
messages for, I mean, it feels like months as it has been, but really it's only been a few weeks. And you said this thing I
think when we were prepping, or maybe you said it on
camera, I don't remember, but it was like, when
Dorian turns on his phone, there's like 90 messages from Orym and it's only been like a few weeks. Yeah, whatever. Some of 'em were just like, "Are you mad at me?"
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. (laughing) Why aren't you responding?
Why aren't you responding? Is everything okay? Yeah.
They all bounce back. Hey, Orym, what you doing?
They bounce back. Yeah. Cell coverage is down.
Yeah. I just feel bad because I
do feel like there was also Dariax was trying to get in there too and it was just like... Was happening? I wanna know-- Yeah, what was happening. Clarify that relationship for us. Was it more like a brother kind of thing? Sorry. I'm sorry.
It was awfully flirty back in EXU. Yeah, I wanna know-- All y'all were flirty in EXU. True. I will say from Dariax's perspective, I'm not discounting any sort of romance, but I think for him, he doesn't think about romance very often. He's very much a person
that's kind of pulled by the winds. Any relationships that he's been in, any entanglements he's had has usually been driven by others. (laughing) Just like in that fanfic I read. (laughing) I'm sorry, you're gonna sit here and say he's driven by the winds like Dorian's not that
whole vibe and be like, yeah. No, I see what you're saying now. I see, yes.
Do you hear what you're saying?
I ran into that one. I ran into that one. No, I mean, I think Dariax sees Dorian as like an older brother figure. He aspires for that confidence
and that that kind of comfort and ease that he walks through life. That's why he started going into bard. He sees--
That was also heartbreaking. He wants to be like him.
Yeah. Could that have ever
turned into a romantic thread? I don't discount it. I don't think he would be against it, but I don't think he thinks
about that stuff very often. I put him a little bit on
the probably asexual scale a little bit.
Oh, fun. He finds he goes to romance,
but he is not the initiator. Yeah.
Yeah. Someone has to tell
him like, "Hey, I like you." He is like, "Oh, okay." Deni$e makes a lot of sense.
Yeah. Yeah, Deni$e makes a lot of sense. That's so perfect.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Guess what? We're in a relationship. Okay.
Okay. Yep, that's--
We're pre-engaged. Oh, sure, whatever you want. Yeah. Ooh, butterfly. Deni$e is the best. Okay, I could do this forever, but I do think it's time for us to get into our sweet little Tower of Inquiry.
Oh! So let's get some questions going. One of us is gonna pull a block. Oh no!
We're gonna pull a block from the tower and read its number aloud and the lovely, the effervescent, the ebullient Miss Dani Carr. The effortless.
DCC. Who 100% just smacked her thigh in the side of the table.
Oh, no! It hurts so bad. I'm so fine, you guys. Everything it so didn't happen. You made it look effortless. I'm so pain.
An effortless mortal wound. Just laugh through it. I have a sympathetic bruise on my hip after that, I'm sorry. I'm so great you guys, everything's fine. Oh no. I feel bad because you died, but I do have to continue
to read or you will-- No, please keep reading. Or I--
Stuff has to happen. Box of billowy vests. They're real, they're outside the door. Oh God. I want a box of billowy pants. Ooh!
I mean, that's all I wear now. Oh, it's so good.
It's a good combo. The pandemic has taught
me a lot of things about myself. Wear comfortable billowy.
Yes. Nah, you're right. Okay, sorry. Speed run. If the tower should fall, there
will be bad consequences for the person responsible. Absolutely horrifying consequences. Take it from me. The lady who had Cyrus killed by giant spiders, and I'd do it again. He died after a sad hand job. Never forget.
Never forget. Best use of the--
A seven! Best performance check ever.
Yeah. How there were teeth
involved, I don't even know. (laughing) Perfect.
It's one of those things. You're perfect. Okay and you got it first.
Way to go. You gotta go first. I gotta go first, okay,
I think I did pretty well the last time I did this, but... Are you actually good at... Well, I'm gonna start, I'm mean-- Anonymous block tower game. I'm gonna set myself up for success. You can't do the top.
Why not? Aabria: Oh my God, there's one rule. (laughing) Okay. Aabria: And whatever block
you touch, you have to do. Oh, that's a new rule you put in just now. (laughing) You doing okay, though.
Yeah. Oh, all day, baby.
It's all good. Yeah, you're good.
Five. Five.
Huzzah! Matt: Congrats. Do I go now? You have to put it on top. Put it on top.
Oh my god. I've never played anything in my life. (laughing) Aabria: I've never played a game. I've never played a
game, that's nice, bye-bye. Glorious.
Good job. (clapping) So this one is from Annebelle. "How do you plan pacing
both for your own story arc and the overall party? As a player, do you have a
rough idea of roleplaying moments you will want to have
throughout the campaign, or as a DM, do you
set up specific scenarios to push an arc/interaction/feeling?" Is this for Aabria?
It's for everybody. Everybody.
Oh, I thought-- Everybody answers. Tell me about how you plan the arc. I don't. No, that's not true. Yeah, I think, you know
one thing I have noticed as a player is that in my mind, I feel like I'm gonna have
all the time in the world to do moments or just drop
little bits of the backstory, but I always find that it doesn't go, I don't have as much time as I think so it's like better to
just take the opportunity when it comes, when it feels natural. No bigger DM energy.
You know? Yeah.
(laughing) Yeah, so like, yeah. That is, as far as the pacing goes, I always feel like you
don't have as much time as you think you have.
Yeah. And then what was the other question? This is fun. Sorry. (laughing) I think the other question--
We've lost Dani. She fully left.
She left. I'll do the follow-up, and I think it's a
permutation of that question. Was there anything like thematically that you wanted to accomplish with Opal? Yeah. Aabria: Or you think you got to do it? I think I got to do it, but I think thematically,
what I started Opal as really was just a function of me not being an experienced player at all so I'm like, what story would I
feel comfortable telling? What's something that
I've been curious about? And at the time, peak pandemic, I was really curious about
coming of age stories, and so for me, I thought, okay,
well I've been young before, so I know I can play that. I know what it's like to
have a delusional amount of confidence before the first life smack. Yeah.
You know. Everyone remembers their first one. That's a special time
where you're like, "I'm a god." It's a really special time and it's just rife with possibility and I knew that I'd have a lot of story that I could pull from, or at least I have a lot of opportunities and a lot of things that
could happen to Opal that I could feel really confident in the role play of it all, so that's how we started Opal. And I thought, okay, well she'll, we'll just go through this story and whatever happens to her, it'll just be her first few
roadblocks into adulthood and it became obviously
something very different, which is great. I mean, she got what she was looking for. The first bad relationship
really kind of puts a little crust on it.
Yeah. So I think, and as...and then in Kymal, like get getting to see her abilities sort of improve a little bit as my abilities as a player improved, and then finally in this last
sort of chapter to see her lose a little bit of the shine because that's just what happens. Unfortunately, as we get
older, we lose a little bit of that delusion, which
can be very helpful. I'm talking about good delusion, I'm not talking about like psychosis, but like that sort of good sort of like, "I can do anything," you
know, that sort of naive energy. It's a little heartbreaking when that goes, but it's also what it means to be an adult and to move forward into
the life that A, you chose, or B, was chosen for you, or with Opal, maybe a little bit of both. And so I really wanted to see, I wanted the audience to
see her grow up a little bit. I mean, she's still who she is. She's still gonna comment on how nice her hair looks and all of that, but I think ultimately if you-- Take the girl out of by Byroden. Yeah.
Whoo! Yeah, I mean, she's still who she is, but which I thought those moments that you offered up to us of
like Opal losing the stuff that makes her her was extra
heartbreaking because of that. But if you ever see Opal
again, which I don't know, but if you ever do, maybe
she won't be someone you recognize anymore, I have no idea. But, I don't know, so maybe thematically, that's kind of what I wanted
to play around with was like, how does somebody become an adult and what are the heartbreaking
moments that make that, that shape that person? I don't know, so I think I achieved that. Hell, yeah.
Yeah. Oh my gosh, yay.
Yay. That's it.
What about you, Liam? I feel like as far as like, oh, I want this or that to happen, where things go that playing character in these campaigns, it's always like a negotiation with you, or whoever your GM is, because I certainly, for all the campaigns, had ideas for where I thought
things could go by the end. Like just one example with Caleb, I thought maybe there'll
be a way for me to story tell with Matt and find a way to go back in time and literally pull off the
world's greatest magic trick. And by the end of it, I realized that that was the absolute
wrong thing for me to do. I mean, it could have been the right thing to do depending on everything that happened leading up to it, but I always feel like I've
got 20 options ahead of me in the short term, and then I can, like the Matron of Ravens, I can kind of see two
or three things going off in the distance, but
you can't see that far, you can't see into the future. And it's just like life, right? I've got a month, I know what
my month is like ahead of me. If I run into my cousin, I'm gonna talk to him about this. If I get pulled over for a traffic ticket, the this is how I... You think like if I do, if
I run into these things, I'm gonna have this kind
of talk with this person, or this is the kind of
decision I'm gonna make. Those things may or may not happen, but it doesn't mean you don't
role play them in your brain before they happen. With Orym, I actually don't wanna talk about, I'd rather the campaign end
before I answer that question for Orym specifically. Yeah, that's a viable and awesome answer. Yeah, amazing. What about you?
About me? When I'm developing a campaign, I developed like the overarching themes, the possible end points to like chapters or the whole overall,
I'd like to eventually end in this kind of a place. I don't define it all,
but I have loose ideas of where I might wanna take it and stuff, and then I get the players' back stories and kind of can tell from when they talk about the character, what
things they might want to explore, whether their backstory
has any significance to them, or if just a starting point and they wanna find their
own venturing forward. And so what I'll do is
I'll take their backstories or their characters like persona and I'll write questions
to myself about them. I have a master doc for each
campaign that is kind of like, I call it like the C3 Narrative Doc, and this, I have like a whole breakdown of my early campaign like brain-spewing of all the different ideas that I have and I'll beat out thin ideas of where I think the campaign can go and then I'll have a
breakdown for each character, with like their backstory
pasted in there from the player and then I'll have bullet
points of questions I ask myself based on that,
which would be like for Orym I'll be like, who is responsible for the death of his husband and his husband's father? How does Keyleth see him? Where could his responsibilities take him? And when these questions asked to myself, as I begin to beat out the campaign, I then answer those questions for myself. Once I have the answers,
then when I'm preparing for the next session or
the next series of sessions, I'll go back to that doc
and see which answers of those questions might
fit into the current story. So I don't plan it all out, I just kind of feel it as it comes, that way I don't, I'm never
pulling you guys in a direction. I'm kind of letting it
come up if it feels natural. So yeah, it's still very fluid and open, I just put all the pieces there, and then when it comes time
to prepare for a certain portion of the game, then I'll
kind of be like a chef in the kitchen, kind of throw in stuff and spices in there.
Little seasoning. Like where are things today?
Yeah. And then I'll bake this cake. Exactly.
Whoa. Like I never thought I'd ever begin to explore Cheney's
backstory, in Wildemount, because I didn't expect
this to ever go to Wildemount early in the campaign, but then when we had like the group split after the solstice, it was
like, well, I was talking with Aabria about what kind of
character she wanted to play and she was thinking
about wanting to come back as one of Chetney's exes.
Aw. And then I was like--
Little girl. I was like, well, great,
then I can throw them in Wildemount, which
means I can actually bring him close to elements of his
backstory and make him confront the one thing of his backstory,
the Santa Claus of all. Fucking Travis Willingham. You made it good. I did the best I could. It is so impressive. It's the silliest shit. It really is. But that was a question I
asked myself from the doc. I'm like, I'm never gonna get to that. And then eventually an
opportunity arose to be like, well, okay, maybe I can spin this and have his past come
back to haunt him in two ways at the same time and kind of make him shake for a little bit, so, yeah, that's how my process works with that. And you. Yeah, I feel deeply same. I think I definitely start off
writing with theme in mind and then it doesn't become
story until you like have that inflection point with the table and you hear about the
story that they wanna tell, via what they care about,
about with their characters, or just like my favorite
subtle thing to do is to ask, especially newer players
that I don't know that well, like what stories they like. So it's asking about like
movies and TV shows and hearing like, "Oh,
this is what you liked from this last movie that you watched, or this thing in this
book that you're like, 'Oh man, I wish I was
thinking about that more.'" And you're like, okay, that's something that's sticking in your brain, so if I reach toward it a little bit, I know you're going to like grab onto it because you'll see it for
what it is as an opportunity to explore something that
you found personally intriguing and now your character
will go run with that too. And, yeah, that whole idea of like the questions that
you make for their characters, there's something really
fun about figuring out the sort of pillars of personality
from your perspective of what makes these characters tick and then you start limit
testing, you start shaking them. That was the whole idea
behind the gemstones of like, actually a really big shout
out to both Liam and Sam. Again, this man makes me cry. Over on Candela, as I
point to the other stage, and trying to figure out in a world where, in the game where you die, they were like, "What if my character doesn't die?" And you're like, "How do I figure out what's worse than death?" Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
That idea. It is so much worse than death. The idea of assaulting identity. Aimee: Yeah. And really playing with this thing that has only ever sat
back in the back of house of how you write for your table. And I was like, oh, what if
we put that on the forefront? What if the thing that we're attacking isn't Opal's hit points and livelihood? I mean, it is in a way because it is PVP, but the thing you're
actually fighting to save is Opal's identity behind it. And we'll make it a physical
manifestation on the board. And that thing is being assaulted too. So starting off with the one question you would ask in character the most often across Prime and Kymal was like, "Where's Ted and what's her fucking deal?" Dude, yes! Totally. And also, if I can piggyback off that, it adds a really great complication because if the whole bit or the whole thing is that we're trying to get... The Spider Queen just
needs her champion, right? Opal is persuasive enough
and her friends love her enough. And I don't know, we
never really discuss this in the Crown Keepers, but I
would imagine that most of them, because of their ties to other deities, would be willing to fight for their own god or get on that side of the stuff. So, that could have been a
real quick interaction of like, "Hey, guys, you wanna
just fight for the deities? "We can all do it." And then they would've been like, "Yeah, sure, I would've done it anyway." But to add that complication of, well, yes, but then you're losing
your friend as you know her is the reason why everybody
would stay to fight, you know? Aabria: Yeah. So I love that.
Aabria: I do too. We got a lot of juice
out of that tower brick. Yeah. Liam, go pull another brick. No! (all laughing) No!
Yay! Squeaky wheel gets the kick! And that's why no one brings it up, even though they're
shaking it on the teleprompter, like, "Go do the bit that we're doing." Have two. Oh. Which one should I do, Dani? Have two people. That's no good. Oh, no, you gotta tap it first. Tap it, see the loose. Dani: That one's good.
Aimee: There you go. This one's very good.
Aabria: Ooh! She went from not doing this to coaching you.
Oh, it started loose, but then I felt friction as it went. Matt: Oh, it's got a pincher. (Aabria laughing) Little turtle head poking out. I'm giving it the shocker from behind. Aabria: Oh, bro, you
ever been prairie dogging? You hate to see it. Aimee: Oh, you hate to. Aabria: You hate to see it. Dani: What's the number?
Aabria: Take more water. Dani: Wait, what's the number? It's two. Matt: Woo! Dokey. Let's see. From Jan, "What would the
evil mirror universe version "of your character be like?" Oh, so hot and tall. Evil universe who's wearing a goatee. Super tall. So super tall. Tall. Hmm. Boy, he would just shut off all the doubts and cut the ties and... I don't know, I think he'd
be a pretty barren guy. Anyone jump in. No, I'm just imagining hot, sad Orym. This is great for me. Or mad. Aabria: Tall.
Tall, mad. Oh, you made him tall for two seconds when we had 37 people at the table. And it was so funny how quickly I was like, Ooh, his energy gets bad when he... Yeah. I didn't make him tall. That was Axford. Shout out to Emily! Emily! Bra-bra! I think you would see lots of people... He would just be killing a lot more. Ooh, this is all good for me. I mean, he's already at a point where he's still trying
to hold onto himself and the person he started out as. But war grinds anyone down. But I think he would just... It's the character in the
abyss when he gets the bends and he just starts
trying to knife everybody. Oh yeah!
Hot. Liam: Yeah.
Great. So--
Is that Michael Bean? Matt: Is that Michael Bean? What's his name? Aabria: I don't know his name. Michael Bean, yeah. Thank you. Sociopathic Orym. Yeah, sociopathic Orym. Aabria: Yeah. I mean, you got a little taste
of what Opal would be like. Yeah, I think it would be that. More goo if we could fit it in. Just a gooey bitch. Aimee: Just all goo. Just all goo? Aimee: That's it.
But the goo's are hot. Don't worry about it. I don't know. I mean, I think Aabria
set it up so nicely EXU. Aabria: She's a jello shot. The original EXU, which was about, it's not, you know, magic
is neither good or bad, or it's like when we-- Aabria: It's what you do with it. It's what you do with it. And also maybe, I don't
know, one of the themes for... I don't know if it's of this whole world, but it's what is good,
who is good, who is evil? Is there an in-between? Fight for the gods. Are they all good? Are they all bad? I don't know. There's a ambiguity to it. I don't know. I don't wanna tell you
what the world did, but-- Matt: No. Magic is really just
knowledge and power in action and that's the same in our
world, knowledge and power, just depends on what you do with it. Yes. I think the dark mirror image is just someone who's just stopped caring. I think really. That's the true evil is someone who has nothing left to fight for and has nothing left to fight for. And so, they just do
whatever the fuck feels right in the moment. I think along that line, thinking of what the
dark version of Deanna is, just my one nice
character I've ever played. Yeah, someone that
gives up on the idea of like, what do you come back for? Because that was her arc word. Aimee: Yeah. And that idea that actually
death's not that bad. So I'm gonna be real loose with the whole saving people part. I think there is a very dark paladin turn where she turns away from the Dawnfather and says, "Everyone
dies, including the gods "and anyone in front of us. "And it's fine 'cause you
all go to the ocean anyway." And becomes deeply
agnostic about tethers and ties and the reasons you fight to stay together and continue to live and grow and change. The paladan Oath of Nihilism. Yeah. Right. The sunny nihilist, like, nothing matters. We all become a snowflake on the ocean. Anyway, tell the water I sent you. (laughing) Man, now I'm developing the
Oath of Nihilism in my head. (laughing) Man, Dariax, he would be-- Oh my God! Aimee: Oh, never.
Dark Dariax! No, don't let him, don't let him. A narcissist. Oh! He'd be a manipulative narcissist. Aimee: Oh. That is the dark mirror to him. He lives to support and please others. And he only feels happy when he belongs behind and with others. He doesn't wanna be the leader. He doesn't want the attention to be on him. He wants to facilitate others. And so, the dark mirror
him would be someone who is only wholly obsessed with the betterment of himself
at the expense of others. And with a high enough charisma and high enough skill and manipulation, he could be a very dangerous entity if he ever took that goal. So, that I think would be the dark mirror. Oh my God. Fuckboy Dariax. I'd still kind of want it!
Aimee: We were not ready! Still kinda want it! Maybe in the future.
Stay tuned for Buddy, the ogres corruption arc. Yeah! Oh, Buddy. I would not have it. I won't.
I simply would not have it. One more block. You wanna do one more? Yeah. Do you wanna do it?
Aimee: You do it. No, you do it.
Oh, I'll do it. Okay, I'll go! She has the full power to tell me to do it. I just like that she
gave me the opportunity to turn it on her. Tap it, tap it, tap it.
Okay. Fully had everything
ready for it to be done. Yeah.
You guys fucked me! You fucked me! I was ready to move on! Fuck you guys. Yay!
All right. Well played, well played. Aimee: Oh, that was cool. Eight baby. Number eight! All right. This is the steadiest
my hand has ever been. Real world from Rebecca. Wiggly. "Real world locations
often inspire fantasy ones. "Where on Earth have you traveled to "that felt like it could have
been right out of Exandria? "Or if Matt is part of answering this." Which he is. He is! "What real world location have you been to "that inspired you to add
something new into Exandria?" My very quick and easy answer is I'm three days back from
my first time in Scotland. Edinburgh entirely is just
the most magical place. It's all castles and stone. And every alley has three plaques with all of its history on it. I stayed in a hotel off
of flesh, what was it? It was flesh market clothes. And I was like--
Aimee: Oh my God. They made what I believe is the red light district of this place so fun and old timey. Flesh market clothes. And you're like, oh, flesh market. Oh, flesh market. Hello, are you looking for
something in the flesh market? (Aabria laughing) Pussy! (all laughing) I'm sorry, what? What was that? I'm sorry, is this not the energy? No, it's exactly the energy. Oh, that's how Sam will come back. He'll come back as Pussy. Come back as Pussy?
Yeah. Yeah.
Aimee: From the flesh market. From the flesh market! Fresh from the flesh market. Yeah. So I'm very curious as to
what the next thing that I build and the ways in which. That sense of history that persists and you still live inside of, but with a sense of
modernity that runs through. I feel Rome is very specific, like, "Here's all of our ruins." And then over yonder where you don't look is where people live and
where all the new things are. But everyone inside of Edinburgh is like, "Yeah, that's a Pizza Hut
and we go to it all the time. "And this building is 30,000 years old. "This was built inside
of a druid's butt hole. "And it also is a club on Thursday nights." And you're like, "Eh, cool." And we will put pineapple on a pizza. Aabria: We will! We will do it. And I just love that sense
of everything happening all at once all the time. And I think Scotland
was the first time I felt like, oh, this is how you get a
world where there's a dungeon and you're just living on top of it. And you're like, the world keeps going and this thing that is old
and decrepit and monstrous continues under you in a
way that you're aware of, but you don't worry about it unless you have a reason to worry about it. And that was a very cool new feeling. Aimee: Love that.
Someone else go. (laughs) I don't know. Matt, help. Is Marquette where you
would go if you were in Spain? (Aabria laughing) Like Mediterranean, but
also maybe like Egypt, maybe like Morocco ish? Some facets of the northeast
side of Marquette maybe. And then the Menagerie Coast as well. Ah, okay. So that's mine. Love it. I would imagine-- (Matt and Aabria laughing) I would imagine if I went to Iceland, I would be like, "Wow, this looks like..." Aabria: Let's go. Matt: Let's do it. Make a little trip.
Let's go. I know someone who's from there. Of course you do. You are the most connected person. You're like, "I got three friends." I do. And I got all the tea, which I won't spill. But not on Iceland, there's no tea, except everyone's maybe related. So they probably
shouldn't be getting married. There's like 100,000 people. Sorry. To our 11 Icelandic Critters. No, but truly, but I feel like
from the pictures I've seen and my friends that have been there, it feels other worldly and what something
from the map would be like. Aabria: Yeah. That's pretty awesome. I like it.
That was a great answer. That's a good answer. Team Issylra could have been in Iceland. Matt: Oh, yeah. Okay. Iceland has that alien
landscape vibe in a way that could fit in many
different fantasy settings. Aimee: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I wanna go there so bad. It's so volcanic, but also chilly. Aimee: Yeah. Sorry, that's a stupid way to describe it. My answer's the Warner Brothers
lot, which I put into a D&D game. Aabria: Yeah! That was a fun time. Dani: It's a great game. Those were really good. Oh, shit, end of answer. Aimee: End of answer. Yeah? There is parts of the western side of the Dwendalian Empire, specifically around north of Deastok, and the mountainous region up there from where Beauregard grew
up that was heavily inspired by a city called Rotorua
in North New Zealand. Ooh!
Dani: Cool. Which is this whole region that is just teaming
with geothermal activity. Aabria: Ooh. They have all of these
natural steam water geysers that go off every hour at least and spray 100 feet in the air. There are these massive
pools of natural geothermal, heavily mineral rich water that spill out and this heated steam that rises off of it that give the landscape these turquoise and orange alien world colors. The entire city smells of
sulfur and other chemicals. It just has this wild-- How dare you make a place that smells like a fart seem so cool? Oh, the clothes I wore
there still smell like Rotorua. And that was nine years ago.
No! Let's smell it! But it was-- Aabria: I wanna hang
out with your fart outfit. Aimee: Just your fart outfit. Next time you come over. I'll let you two chill for a bit. You can catch up. Yeah, find out how stinky. Yeah, I have one of the scarfs there. Still every now and then
I'm like, "Yeah, still there." Aimee: Yes, it's still there. But no, it was a beautiful town, but it just had that wonderfully
weird, unique feeling. And that certainly inspired that locale, the Dwendalian Empire, as
well as a few other areas as well. There's no place I've
been that looked like that. Aimee: That's so cool.
Aabria: Dope. That's definitely one. There have been many others, but that's definitely one that stood out. Oh, amazing. I'll jump into past Warner Brothers, and it's for Candela, which
is so far away from here, which was-- It's right there. It's right over there. Matt: 20 feet away. Over a year ago when Marisha and all started talking to me about running a chapter of Candela. I was like, "I wanna go to Ireland." Wait, did you run one? Liam: I done runned one. He ran the best one 'cause I was in it. Aabria: Yeah, that's right.
Just kidding. But it was fucking awesome. It was really fucking cool. Aabria: It was so good. It was so... It felt like we were in a
Martin McDonagh play. Aabria: Yes! You know what I mean? Especially when we went to that island. Huge inspiration. And I've visited, I've been to Ireland four times at this point. And the place where you
guys ran around at the end of the first game in that chapter-- That was so fucking cool. Was largely inspired by a place called The Burren in Ireland, which is these hills where
there's stone and grass. It just looks like wrinkly
rhino flesh, almost. White stone. And it's very alien looking. It doesn't look like
anything else in Ireland. And the man who toured us around that area told us that Neil Armstrong
had visited there at one point and said that it is the closest on earth. that he has seen to the moon. That's so rad.
That's amazing. You mean the moon that they set up at the Warner Brothers lot that--
Aabria: Yeah. It all comes back to Hollywood. Done. Just kidding. Just kidding!
Aabria: Taking inspiration. That's very cool. Aabria: She's not.
I love it. Oh, that's rad as hell. Amazing. Okay. Well, thank you so much
Annebelle, Jan, and Rebecca. And if you have a question
for our Tower of Inquiry, you can enter it at critrole.com/tower. Hoo! Hooray! All right, guys, I think it's time for us to slide into the Deep Dive! Dani, let's get some tankered action! Tankered. Oh, tankered.
Okay. You got a pretty mug. (Matt laughing) Get the mug out.
Bitch, I know. Get the mug out. Dani, get the mug out. Dani's deep dive. Here's your mug.
Oh! Here's your mug.
Aw! Yay! You're welcome. Laxative? Was that you? No, that was--
Why? Why would that be me? That was Utkarsh.
Oh, Utkarsh. Why would that be me? Girl, I don't know. You like fart jokes. Well, I do.
Let me see. Let me see.
That's correct. Where's yours? Let me see yours.
Aqui Deni$e. Aabria: Beautiful. Me. That's the greatest tattoo
I've ever heard of in my life. So good. Yeah, mine's a little different. Sorry.
Oh, cutie. Matt: God, Deni$e was a force, man. Deni$e was everything. Aimee: Love Deni$e. They have to find each other again. God.
Aimee: They sure do. Ugh. Just one stinger.
Get violent. Be violent.
Aabria: But in the fun way. In the fun way. But it won't start off fun. I think she'll probably tear
a page out of Deanna's, like, just going for a punch, right? Aabria: Yeah. Is that the first thing you did was punch? It might have been a little slap. Oh, it was a slap. A slap is worse. I'm gonna check. Aabria: I've never slapped
someone in real life, and I wanna slap someone so bad. An openhanded slap is so much more humiliating than a punch. Aabria: Yeah.
You know? 'Cause I don't even wanna... No.
Aabria: Yeah. One free slap. No! Not on the show. Aabria: Okay. But some time.
Not for free. Stop. Liam: Even it out.
Aimee: Yeah. So just do one on each side and then-- Perfect. Dariax did take invisibility so he could take another
trick out of Dorian's book and be like, "Oh, yeah, no, "I'm just gonna finish dinner real fast "and then we'll go and
get some wine, honey." Aimee: Yeah, yeah. (all laughing) Aabria: No! Dani: Dariax, you don't deserve her. You don't deserve her, Dariax.
You don't deserve her. Deni$e with a dollar sign. Maybe he'll stick around. I don't know. He's been through a lot. Be there for that dwarven constitution. Yeah.
Yeah, let's go! Oh my God, I have so
many follow up questions. Aimee: You both have it. We need "4-sided Dive: After Dark". Yeah.
It's not for now. It's not for now. No one's ready. Those dwarves can go for
hours and hours and hours. They age so slowly. Okay, all right, we've
got to play this game. We're going to go around in a circle and take turns pulling some questions. That's yours.
Everyone has their own cup. These are mine.
Help me! I just did.
You two are sharing one. Matt: Who's going first? You go first. I'll pull it out.
You go first. You were already doing it.
Here we go. Orym's high perception,
yes, is often the ability that keeps Bells Hells the safest, as he can see the
threats coming very often. Yeah.
Does Orym feel any extra weight on his
shoulders due to this? Everything's heavy.
He's little. He weighs 50 pounds.
He weighs 50 pounds? He's a little guy!
I don't know what he weighs. Nancy!
Nancy. I think I weighed 50
pounds, I'm not kidding you, I was four years old weighing 50 pounds. Yeah. Yeah, look. That's why we got personality. That's why we're so funny. You know, can I have a followup question for you with that?
Yeah. I remember when I saw, I peeked over when I was playing Deni$e and I saw your passive
perception, it was huge, and you were like, yeah, I
worked really hard to get... What did you mean by that? Did you just take certain feats and stuff? Yeah, and magic item. I have a magic item that
helps a lot that came from EXU when we went to Gilmore's
shop, and we were given a free gift certificate.
That's right. For anything in Gilmore's shop, and I designed Orym to
be a protector and a guard and someone who was looking for threats, and so I knew of that item.
Yeah. And after that, I was like,
wow, look at that jump. How could I make this go higher? Yeah!
That was the moment. What is it, 30 or something crazy? It's now 33, I believe.
Oh my god! Just fart on his pillow. He'll get pinkeye. Yeah, it'll be great.
Party wipe. I think that Vex was the highest till now. Till now.
And I've surpassed that. Orym definitely surpassed--
That's fun. Being able to be like, I'm
going to beat the high water mark of a previous character that
specced into a specific thing, that's actually really cool, and as someone who doesn't always
get to play in continuity in the same place over and over again, that's got to be really
fun, to beat your PR. And, I mean, it's not even something that I have to think about that much. You have to think about it,
because you're oftentimes, I mean, you can do whatever you want as you're gauging the
ebb and flow of the story, but you're factoring in
often, probably not always, but often, well, Orym's
perception is ridiculous, so he's going to see things, and even though I'm not actively
doing things in the moment, it is still telling the story
and it is still showing the character that I set out to make, and I love it.
Yeah. Could you imagine, Orym,
we're actually watching? He'd be the shiftiest... Just eyes darting all
the time, just so paranoid. Oh my god!
(indistinct) in real life. You'd be like, Nancy, cool it. A halfling hummingbird.
Yeah! Chihuahua eyes. As a GM, it's interesting,
because the first instinct as a GM is, I sometimes
want to surprise my players. And when you have a character like Orym, with that high a perception,
there are some ways around it, depending on the type
of threat that's there. But you don't want to
also undercut something that the player has built
to be exciting, and instead, it's the perspective
of going, it's more fun to create things that are
trying to surprise them, and then to get to
turn to Liam and be like, but you pick something
up that no one else is, far before the danger kicks in, and you have a moment
to prepare or warn people. And because you've
built a character to do that, I don't feel frustrated by that. Instead it's like, okay, I'll
start giving out information, and then I remind
myself what you're saying, to be like, but Orym, you
pick up these additional details, because of the way
you've built your character. Which might break the
tension of a surprise, but what it does is it introduces
the tension of knowledge with only a moment to prepare.
Yes. Which is a different
kind of gift in its own right. It's one thing to be like, and then out of the darkness, something! It's another to go, you
smell and hear the scraping and scurrying of something
metallic on concrete. Yeah.
And the slight cracking, curdling sound of a
clicking, insectoid voice. Nobody else hears it but you. And that is now in your head, and your responsibility
to do something with it, and that is a different kind of tension, which is equally fun, and
is still gifting you, the player, for how you built your
character to have that ability. Yeah, and mechanics tell story. Yeah.
Everything I chose, from the Battle Master
moves that he can do, it's as close as you
can get to being a wizard without having any magic, because they push and
they pull and they knock down. Maybe people pay attention, I don't know, but everything that I do with him, I'm thinking about throwing myself in the way of things and taking damage. I don't know, he throws himself... I've thrown myself off buildings to land on monsters--
Yeah. --to get in the way of any
of our casters constantly. I love bait and switch. I love running across the battlefield and nudging somebody out of the way. I love that Orym can go
under someone's legs, and then knock that person
back to get them into safety. It was great being Vax, who was going in to stab all the time,
not that Orym can't do a healthy bit of damage,
and Caleb was so much fun. Wizards are so much fun
because they can change the field. But I have enjoyed being a protector a lot. A lot. Been very gratifying.
Have you ever played... Look, I can't beat the charges
of my dumb jock upbringing. But Orym's build and the way
you play him reminds me so much of the people I hated playing
basketball against the most, which was just a little
defense-oriented player that was just there to stay in your shit.
Yes! Especially as a taller player. Just confuse the legs a little bit. Yeah, when you're... Make it less sporty. Playing as a shooting guard, when you've got someone that's little, and you're trying to set
up the rest of the group to be like, can you please set a screen and get this little fucker off of me? That frustration of someone
who will not get out of your way to let you move freely or
act in the way you want to without getting a hand in there
or getting a body in the way or swiping at the ball and
knocking off trajectories. There is something that's so specific, and I can envision Orym
so perfectly through that lens, and I think you really nailed it. I think basketball's pretty accurate, because it's controlling the ball. Yeah, and he's always
exactly where the action is, and is just doing the most. He's the player that you're like, he's going to foul out
or take a really big hit, but then he's going to
be back in the next game, and you're like, god, please
someone just concuss him! He's the one player that you're like, I want a bad thing to happen to you. Fuck, you're very good at this. All this, very accurate.
Yeah. I'm the person on the other side of that. Yeah! I was in for a little bit at level two, and I was like, good god, man.
Campaign two, it was Beau. Campaign three, it's Orym,
the up-front fighting martial kid that just is so sticky--
Yes! --and so creative in how they come at it that I'm like, I can't get around! Away! I have to just--
Kick you. It's great.
Go over there! It's fun.
Be a wizard! It's a proud frustration.
Yeah. Love it.
Beau had some sick moves. Hell yeah.
Okay. Pull your thing.
Are we going in order? Pull.
Okay. Aabria: I hope it's one of
mine, because we're sharing. There's a word here that I
don't understand. Help me out. What is it?
What is dunamancy? Dunamancy!
That is for Aabria. Girl, English is my second language. What's that? Oh, that's for you. That's a Aabria one.
That's for you. Do you see my name next to it? Girl!
I'll answer it. No, no!
No no no, you go. You go, you go, you go.
I want you to go, because my brain needs more coffee. We want to hear the question! Sure, what was the inspiration for Ted and Opal's backstory being wrapped up in
dunamancy and the Luxon? Okay, so this is really
fun, because I always, my dream of dreams that I
think I didn't say anything to you until seconds before we went on the air, I was like, what if I
could do a little thing and tweak some of the
existing D&D lore and bring it into Exandria in a way
that has a little legacy? There's something in D&D called a kalashtar where's a sort of two-souled person, and that was the build that
Opal was originally built on. And the question of what's Ted's whole deal was always predicated
on the idea that eventually, we would get to this idea
and this little lore in my head of another group of people
that found another beacon somewhere else in Exandria, and in their understanding of it, saw, because it's such a
beautiful idea of this entity that wanted to understand
itself, so it split itself apart and observed itself and
how people interacted with it, and growth and change,
and using that external, I'm going to set an eye on myself and learn who I am via watching. I wanted to bring that into the people that walk through Exandria, so yeah, there's this idea of,
Opal is half of a soul, and Ted's the other half, and
her mother was the same thing. It's a very rare gift that only exists in a couple places in
the world, and that culture, it was a small sect
that's sort of lost to time, but there is this racial trait that exists in a little pocket of Tal'Dorei
of people who are born, and their soul is split in
half, and as they are raised, and going back to that coming of age tale, coming of age, how do
you learn who you are? You watch yourself.
Totally. So the soul, split in half, watches itself, understands itself, and
comes back together. And then the little idea of everything, I think echo knights are super cool and very good at killing
stuff, so we love that. That idea that the dunamancy
build of echo knights is tied towards this idea. Echo knights are a possibility, a different timeline
possibility, and I loved the idea that for this group of people, the Aevilux, what if Ted had stayed
forward instead of Opal, and that's the version of this echo knight. So Opal walks through
the world because Opal got to be the forward
one, but the echo knight that you walk through the
world with all the time is, what if Ted had stayed forward and Opal was the power behind her?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what happens now that
Opal has lost that memory of Ted? I don't know. It felt like just the meanest thing to do. It was, it was, so I
wonder, is Ted still there? Ted is still there.
So when she comes back up, she's like, who the fuck is that? (screams) But, I mean, she's got so much stuff going on inside her anyway.
Yeah. Yeah. I think it's less of a, I
don't know who you are, and more of a, I don't
know why I care about you. Yeah.
Because the thing, if you go into, well, why
didn't the Spider Queen just be like, hey, this whole group, let's all go save my life together? It's that idea that the
Crown Keepers love you. Yes.
And they will fight to save you, so if things
break bad in the big fight, they're not going to going
to, let's all fight to the death for the Spider Queen.
Hell no. They're like, we're going
to fight to save Opal. We're going to fight to save each other and leave the battle. So you start kicking those
big pillars of personality so there is nothing left to fight for, except for what the Spider
Queen pours into you, which is a slavish
devotion to her, for example. Yeah. So yeah, that idea of taking
away your connection to Ted is one of those big things to be like, well, what do you fight for? Because your sister, or
the other half of yourself, is not a thing that registers with that emotional resonance anymore.
Right, right. So you just become a little more hers. Opal in an ongoing horror movie. All the time, forever, and I
think that's the cutest thing you can do to a character
that's like, I'm Paris Hilton. Yes, now she's in her DJ era. She's getting that bag, okay? She's in her "Stars are Blind" era, and it's not going well.
Yes. Next to hit the Sahara
stage, Twice Crowned. DJ Twice Crowned is a pretty good name. It's a very millennial set, you know? She only plays "Sandstorm"
on repeat, that's it. It's the recorder version.
Shout to to our bards, baby. God, great. Amazing.
So good. Pull another one.
Yeah, your turn. Make sure it says your name next to it. Okay. It says Aimee.
Yay. Oh, well, this one is kind of yours, a little bit, so let's--
Okay. Okay. Oh, who was Opal's mother? She still has a lot of
mystery surrounding her. You know, when I first
started this backstory, I always think of, I don't know, one thing that I thought
would be interesting is to give her a mother wound. That's not a crazy thing.
Yeah, no, that's great. We all, when we build characters, are like, how can their childhood be so fucked up? Because most of the stuff, you know-- It takes trauma to push you into an adventurer's lifestyle.
Yeah. Absolutely.
What makes you leave? I'm well-adjusted!
Never. Never going to happen.
Never. And if it did, you
wouldn't watch that show. So yeah, I wanted to give her, and I wanted to explore
my own sort of background when it comes to relationships
with mother figures, and so I don't really know. I don't even really remember
what I put in the backstory other than she left really
early on, of her own volition, and I remember that being the thing that, it wasn't like she died or she left because of something that happened to her that she had no control over. It was what would happen to
someone if one of their parents just was like, you know what,
I'm going to actively leave. What does that do to a person? And I think for Opal, it sort of made her, it brought out a curiosity in her that I don't think will ever be squashed, no matter how much the
Spider Queen does that. That's where her sense
of adventure comes from, I think, is from her mother, and from never really knowing
where she went, why she went. I mean, now we kind of
know why she went, right? She was whatever. But at the time, I just
thought that was interesting. So yeah, that's kind of the
long and short answer to it. I thought it might bring up
some cool stuff for Opal and Ted to talk about and
ruminate on, and that's it. That was really good.
It just occurred to me. What?
The champion of the Matron and the champion of the Spider Queen, both born and raised in Byroden. Yep.
Yeah, baby. Yeah, buddy. And they're twins. Don't make them like they do
in Byroden. Yeah, both twins. Both twins.
You've got to get twins. That was purely coincidental, by the way. Or was it?
You get one of the twins. I swear, for me, it was. You're going to get a hell of champion. The universe.
The universe. Yeah yeah yeah, it's
very interesting and cool, because you never think,
a little town called Byroden. By the road. It's the pies, man.
Something they put in them. Aimee: The pies! That's how you distract Orym. It's people!
You've got to sneak in, you just put a pie under a box. He's in there.
Yes. The Spider Queen and
the Matron with a string out to a cardboard box
with pies underneath, bink! Buddy! Get that pie. But no, there is something about people that grow up in isolated areas. They tend to leave, you know what I mean? They want to see what's out there, and people that take big swings usually end up in big
positions, maybe, I don't know. The idea that Opal was literally raised under a statue of Vex and Vax.
Yeah. That's just generationally
enough time to be like, oh, I'm a little twin
running around this city looking up at these two,
and they saved the world. Yeah, yeah yeah yeah. How do you not have that inform everything you could be as a little kid?
Totally. And then the moment you
hit, I am technically adult with a child's heart and an adult's ease of moving around the world,
how do you not immediately run into the adventure that you
were raised under the shadow of? Absolutely.
It's such a fun-- Yeah, wanting to be a part of that legacy, and also, there's I
think a little part of Opal that maybe thought, if
I can be as important-- Yeah!
--or just famous enough for maybe my mother to hear my name, and maybe she'll come back into my life. I've heard famous people that maybe have one parent or whatever, they say that.
Yeah. Maybe when I find a
certain amount of success, they'll come back.
Yeah. Or they'll know where I am. I don't know, something like that. It's heartbreaking,
but I think that applies. It's the mother wound.
It's a motherfucker, man. It's a good one, man.
It's good one. That's a good wound.
A really good one. Yeah, the information you
gave me about your mom was, she left of her own volition.
Yeah. And Opal knows that.
And she has heterochromia. That's right, those were the two things. And my favorite thing was,
I gave you heterochromia in Kymal and you were like,
wonder what that's about. And I'm like, no no no! Read your backstory, you dumb bitch! Ain't that just how it goes every time? Every time.
It's really amazing, the shit you forget, that
you write into your backstory, and then you're like, oh
wait, that was so meaningful. And then after the fact, just sob. There's nothing wrong
with that when it happens. There's just something funny when you're the DM and you're like, I bet you've been thinking
about this as much as I have. Here's this thing. And you're like... And you're like, that's cute. And you're like, wait.
Crickets. Yeah, you're just like, no. My moment. Yeah, there it goes. Bye.
Damn, okay. Well. You want to pull?
Oh, I can do one. Yeah, pull! "Matt, Kreviris is a fascinating city built on half-remembered dreams. What was it like creating
that city and what inspired it?" Man. Part of it, like a lot of
things come from dreams. I don't know if it's, some nights I have dreams I don't remember, some nights I have extremely vivid dreams that I wake up and I
start writing things down. Yeah. I think Kreviris, the image of the giant central glass pillar and the city kind of built
around it in that cavern space, I don't remember the specifics around it, but I remember that visual in the dream, and I wrote that down like a year ago. I didn't know where I was going to put it. But as I was developing
the culture of Ruidus and the people that existed there, that made perfect sense for me, 'cause I was like the
surface of Ruidus is so rough. What cityscapes would be
there would be constantly battered by the weather and the wind
and the dust and the rocks, so it would be primarily
like shell surface societies and probably the lower end of society to have to be forced out of there, and that means the bulk of its society would be within the actual moon itself, and that's kind of where
the two married together. As far as the dreams, when
I was developing Ruidus, what drives these
creatures to be so separate from the entities of Exandria? What makes them covet Exandria? What makes them feel familiar
as much as they are separate, except their own culture
is based in the idea that they don't dream
themselves when they sleep? They kind of witness
the dreams of Exandrians. Oh.
Oh! Different Exandrians.
Good night! So their entire culture is based in their inspiring dreams
are the dreams of others that they see at a distance. So it comes through their architecture, it comes through their art.
Yeah. Everything is inspired by
something that's not their own, and so the city itself has
such a variety of architecture that they call their
own, but it's all inspired by something that's from the world above, the Blue Promise, as they call it. And so--
Oh! It was just this--
Blue Promise! Blue Promise.
Oh my god. And there are many people
there that look at it in wonder and beauty and see it
as this incredible thing. Yeah.
But culturally, those in charge covet
it, and they resent it, and there's an aspect of
Predathos and the entity that kind of subconsciously
drives those in power, especially the Weave Minds,
since they've connected with it to hate aspects of Exandria and to want to be a part of it, to return and take what's theirs. To rid it of the gods that keep them away. And that's really what it is. Like the Ruidians, those who
know the truth of Predathos, there is a heavy thread of
you're locked here with me. Yeah.
Because they're afraid. Mm.
Yeah. Would you like to be free? You know, some interesting facets there. Follow up question. Oh, what is Predathos, and
how many hit points does it have? Yeah, yeah, yeah. How hot?
Totally out of nowhere. How hot? Oh, we'll find out. Oh!
Oh, so scary! I know.
It's very scary. I like it. I mean, I have a follow up question if we have time for it. But like--
We have infinite time. I'm the boss of this and
no one can tell me anything. Truth. Whenever I see DMs or I'm in
a game or I watch something, I can't help, and maybe this
is where my own mind goes, to use that and or maybe
take it as a commentary on, you know, what we're living
through as a society, you know? And so how much, 'cause when you say that, I think of all of the cultures that, for better or worse,
probably maybe for worse, as Americans, as the United
States, we've Westernized or we've colonized through ideas or influenced their own cultures and how that sometimes
can breed inspiration and sometimes breed resentment because it sucks up all
the air out of everybody else. Like do you think about
that when you're coming up with themes for games?
Sometimes, yes. Sometimes subconsciously.
Yeah. I mean, it's hard to not
have society historically or in the moment influence
the stories you want to tell. Yeah.
Because it influences us all across the spectrum. I, myself, have grown up a person that has, I'm still wrestling with the
sadness of my American identity because I grew up around a lot of friends who were deeply steeped in culture. Yeah.
Like centuries or thousands of years of culture. Yeah.
And I had none to claim for my own. And even my Scottish heritage I'm getting connected
with in more recent years, but even that I feel very removed from. Yeah.
Mm-hmm. So there is an aspect of living in a space that everything that is my culture is in many ways claimed from other cultures and changed.
Yeah. And what is purely American culture feels, in many cases, vapid or embarrassing. Yeah.
Not all of it. There are some things that I cherish-- Yeah, but when you travel, you know, you get other
people's perspectives of what we look like to them. And that, to me, is really
what kind of clarified it. It isn't until you see
the world outside of-- Yeah.
You know, your own. And for me, I'm out of America, that you really have
more of a perspective here and you know, I'm appreciative and thankful that I've had the life I have here. By a lot of means. I'm not like hating on America, but there are a lot of
challenges with our history and what we identify as, especially when it comes
to American exceptionalism. Yeah.
Yeah. And so yeah, those themes are, consciously and subconsciously weaving into a lot of the stories we tell because it's partially
important for our own, and for my processing of this as a person but also it's an important
thing for all of us to think of and consider and kind of,
you know, face in subtle ways, or not so subtle ways, depending on the story that's being told. So yeah, no, I'd say
probably very definitely. So dope.
That's very cool. It's my favorite part of being a player is to get to play out those
themes and those things from a place that feels
safe, that feels like, "Well this is a fantasy world," and yet. Yeah.
You know, I love that. Where you can feel that
little, just a little tether. Yeah.
Ryan laughs, 'cause I have a little tell when you go and describe something new and I'm into it, I'm like, "Oh, a vibe," and then he waits for it. Like if you get to the
end and I yell, "A bop!" Like (laughs)
A bop! (laughing) He knows that you've
brought something together that I'm like, "Oh,
what a fully cogent idea that has its thematic root. It's just, yeah, it's very cool and you're just like,
"Oh, it feels like a song," and you're like, "Oh, that's
a little hit song right there." Well, I've experienced
it from all of you also. Like--
Yeah! Every--
Same. Yeah. So it's, I mean, it's very cool. As a player, very cool. Your turn to run a game. Oh god, fucking no! That's like--
(laughing) Hey, babe.
No! You said that in a way
that hurt my fucking-- No, I could never. I can't even read Dunamancy, okay? How the fuck? My vocabulary's five words. Be fair, Dunamancy's a very specifically nerdy word that I--
No, no, no. But I love that people love it. It's like when you go to a restaurant and a sommelier comes
around and you're like, "You know, I know a little bit about wine. I know enough to know what I like." Yeah.
But I love that someone else knows
what everybody else likes. Hell yeah.
I love that. I love that you can taste
what side of the mountain this fucking grew on.
Truly! I don't have that skill, don't want it, and I'm so glad that you got--
Love that for you. Love that for you. If you like it, I love it.
Pretty solid analogy. I love that.
Yes, I love it for you. Just yell pet net, and then
just sit back and be like, is that enough? Are you impressed with me? Yeah! 'Kay? Read the Dunamancy. Dunamancy, it's good! Everyone but Sam's experience. (laughing) Challenges the sommelier.
You've never watched the show. Yeah, he's never watched it. I love it. Aabria: Pull another! (vocalizing) This one. What does it say?
Who could say? "How does Orym feel
now that Dorian is back? What was it like for
Orym to see him again?" Oh man, he's been thinking about him. (laughs) You should get closer. (laughing) A lot because--
Sit on your lap. Because the story and
what they're dealing with has gotten harder and harder and harder, and I don't know, it's just been, Dorian's personality
and their time together and just thinking of him
has been one little light that he carries around when everything else is getting so grim and the people he's
traveling with are struggling just like he is.
Yeah. Now Dorian is arriving to us dealing with a massive immediate grief. Oop.
Whoops. You're welcome.
What? I'm trying to match a vibe. (laughs) So we'll see what the chemistry of him rejoining the group is right now, but things were simpler when Dorian left, so he's just been thinking
of a happier or easier. It wasn't easy, like Eshteross was killed, but things were so much smaller scale, it felt like at that point. I don't know, it feels good that he's... I'm, and nervous. Orym's very nervous because he's been talking through a one way phone and they keep coming back saying-- Message not delivered. Message not delivered, cell service down. That's so cute. He obviously has feelings for Dorian. He has no idea. He doesn't think that
Dorian returns any feelings. He doesn't? It's unrequited, he thinks. Hold on, did we not--
Well he doesn't-- That's fine.
I don't know. I don't know either. But Dorian did tell me that, uh, no I'm kidding, he didn't say anything. (laughing) As his GM.
Yeah. He told me to not tell you. Aimee: Yeah. (laughs) That he would love it if you just smooched him under Ruidus. That would be so romantic. What if we kissed under the
moon with a evil monster in it? (laughing) Oh. But and he also doesn't know... He's very shy. Orym's very shy after his everything. Yeah! It makes perfect sense. And it is that sort of sweet
and heartbreaking idea of you have, like Orym
has mythologized Dorian in a way that makes sense and gives him a thing to connect to. A simpler version of a solvable problem of, yeah it was a simpler struggle back then. So I'm very curious to watch
you guys be your full selves and how long it takes to get to the, "Oh, we've both gotten much messier now. Like what's still here and what's the nature of our friendship or if there's something more?" It's very cool.
Yeah. Yeah, it's hard to know what'll happen. Yeah!
Now they can trauma bond. Yay!
Which is the healthiest. It's the healthiest
relationship you can have! Okay!
In D&D, that's the only kind you get, baby! You want to pick yours? No, you go first.
Okay. All right. Aabria: This episode's
gonna be 96 hours long. No, I literally thought that it was just one round of four, but it says four.
Yeah. Okay. "Despite everything"--
We can lightning round. Okay, lightning round. "Despite everything, Opal is not alone, having Fy'ra Rai with her now, how does she feel to still
have Fy'ra Rai at her side?" Well, I think it was complicated at first, because I didn't really
know what that meant, so I was just trying to get her to go. (laughing) Because, you know, you don't
want to condemn your friend to a lifelong--
For sure! You know, whatever, to the Spider Queen, but it sounds like she's now
under the patronage of the? She's not a full--
She's not a full champion, but she's working for her.
Yeah. So--
A chosen, if you will. She's a chosen.
Yeah. There's a word for it.
Yeah. So I think it's cool that, you
know, she's got her back, or I feel like Opal feels
comfortable and confident that Fy'ra Rai is on the same team because she was afraid of her the most. Aabria: Yeah. So that's really cool. And hopefully a little
tether to her previous life. So I don't know how it's going to play out, but I think that Opal
definitely feels relieved but a little guilty because
maybe she could've gone on and had another kind of life. She could've found her sister,
she could've made amends, I don't know. So there's a little bit of guilt that comes with dragging her along. But also I just don't think
Fy'ra Rai would have liked, unless I would've put
the force cage on her, she would've come anyway, so. She might have been able to get out of it. She rolls well. Yeah, she rolls so well. She has all these fucking dice. 'Cause it's charisma save
to use magic to get out of it, and I think she had something sneaky to do. But it doesn't matter.
Yeah. I will say--
It would've taken something like that, and I
just think also as a player, as Aimee looking at my
friend and trying to figure out like what do you want to do as a player, you know what I mean? Versus just me being
like, "No, don't come!" And it's like well maybe
she wanted to, I don't know. (laughing) So yeah, I think it's cool. I think Opal thinks it's cool, but she does feel a little guilty. I like the story it tells about the gods 'cause it means that
Wildmother and Spider Queen are sitting across around
their Clash of the Titans galactic space table going like. Yeah!
At each other. Aabria: And that was-- They don't typically truck with each other, at least not recently, I don't think. Yeah. I want to see that reality show. That idea that like,
yeah, before everything that put them on opposite sides of things, there is a bond between them. Was it sibling-like, was it a friend group? In the same vein that you
said like it was a little way to reach back to Opal's previous life, I think that's what eventually
made the Spider Queen relent. She was like, "Oh, this
collab, this group project"-- It's a good one.
"Does remind me of the bond I may have shared with the Wildmother back in the day, so let's let it go and let's trust this. Yeah.
So that was the small concession to Opal's influence that I wanted to give to the Spider Queen. Aimee: That's really cool. "Okay, I will trust this one." Wildmother is romantically intertwined with the Lawbearer? Yeah! Okay!
Hot! Spider Queen was a--
Bro! I think I said something
as the Spider Queen like shit talking her. I was like, "Fucking Lawbearer." (laughs) And I was like, "You can
read that however you want." Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember that.
I know what I bring. I know what I bring to the table, and it's sexual tension. Aimee: No, I literally want to see the-- They were all fucking. I want to see the real
world Road Rules challenge of all the gods. Like I know--
(laughing) I just want to see it. Run it, Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt! You go ahead, I'll plead.
I'll see if we can get the rights to the real world and road. It's viable!
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's getable. We do challenges like,
"You eat the spider first!" Or not the spider in this case. A roach or some shit. Like--
Spider Queen's like, I'm gonna eat the spider first. Aimee: Yeah, I'm gonna go ahead. That'd be pretty great, actually. Yeah! I'm gonna answer the question before I keep talking
about them all fucking. Yeah.
Oh, I got one for me! "What was it like to take the reins for such a short amount of time, in the middle of such a hectic
period for the Bells Hells?" Stressful! (laughing) There is something really funny about the, oh, there's a tension, a
palpable tension at the table. Here's the opposite of that for now. That's really, it's a little stressful. There is something really fun about coming in for a short burst and you're like, "Hey, guys, we haven't played in a hot second and I know there's so much conversation you would all love to
have with each other." None of that. Here's just a fight, and we'll find moments to take those spaces and breathe and talk about what you mean to each other, but there is something really fun about just a little scramble down a hill. Like just taking a hill
at a run and you're like, maybe you fall down a thousand times, but you're just kind of
screaming and going like, "We're out in four hours, let's go!" Yeah.
That felt very good and fun and it's a fun different energy. You're like, "There's no time." Yeah.
"There's no time. What we're doing, just go. Go, go, go."
A challenge, I'm sure. Yeah!
You know. It was a fun format to have the opportunity mid
combat to grasp memories and then define what those memories were. And then watch them be taken from us, like to beyond just
the mechanics of a fight and to have varying
goals throughout the fight. But now to have these moments to role play, to fill in the gaps, to
have these explorations that we wouldn't have
had the opportunity to do so with the time that was given. And then understand that this is something
else we're also fighting for beyond just the stakes
that we can understand. It was a really, really fun way to bring all those meanings and all of those various
stakes into that burst of time. Aimee: Yeah, really cool. That was so fun. And they all looked like
little dicks in the ground. And they're all little dicks. There was a moment, this I
can lay at Darling Dani's feet, where we're like, we have to make sure these are visually, like that they stand out enough because everyone's
gonna be kinda looking at it. And I was like, what if
we put like a little grouping so she could see it? She's like, "What if it's a little dick?" And I was like, "I love Critical Role." (laughs) It could be a little dick. It could be a little dick if we want. You put three of them
together in a little triangle. And I saw it and I immediately said, "Hey guys, that is basically a penis." So if you just add one
more, they'll be able to see it. You know what, I was right. The eye travels. The eye does travel. Yeah, the entire time
the battle is happening, somewhere in the woods,
somewhere floating above is a hooded traveler, Artagan just looking down,
going (chuckles) this is fun. Yay! Dani: Turns out I was
the traveler's chosen. The whole time. Aabria: The traveler you
would see in the world. True.
Alright, Matt, I'm gonna give you... Yeah, okay, go.
What did I do? No, you're good. You're perfect. "Matt, why are the Weave Minds so focused on bioengineering? Why would they be
willing to join with Ludinus if they have a world they
themselves control and craft?" Yeah. Some very good questions. Well, bioengineering is an
interesting thing to pursue when you have limited resources. When the majority of
what you have to work with in a relatively barren world and you've essentially mined the majority of the useful resources is biology. That is a realm to expand
and develop and mutate, especially when you are
trying to exhibit more control over the world that you do have is, how do you best tailor them to be useful? How do you tailor them to be functional within a society as you're designing it? And the Weave Mind is definitely like the evil tech bros of- (hollers) I was just about to be like, they all listen to those alpha
male podcasts that are like, four hour work week
They do. I sleep for 43 minutes at a time. And then I snort some just raw coffee beans and lick butter and then
I'm good for a day and a half. All meat diet. All meat, don't cook it. It stinks in here. I mean, as far as to why
they're working with Ludinus, I mean...
Luda! Every time. I get it.
It's so good. There are many things that work here and there's a lot of goals that all align towards a
handful of specific moments and events that could transpire. So I think, and more
information may reveal itself in the campaign, but the Weave Mind and
Ludinus definitely see each other as a mutually useful arrangement. That whether or not they
like or even trust each other is to be seen. But they-- It's like the end of Chicago. I mean... (laughs) There's no business like show business. That's pretty much what
inspired campaign three. Yeah, yeah. (laughs) It's just Thelma and Roxy just doing it. I was hoping it could
be a big reveal, but-- And there we go.
Thanks, Aabria. Edit this out! (laughs) I was thinking more
so like you as in China, but that's better. That's better. It's better. It rolls off the tongue.
The same thing. It's all Chicago.
Yes. All the way down.
Every time. (laughs) Aabria: Amazing. He had it coming. All right. Okay, hold on. We're gonna do another
pull from the tower of inquiry. You're gonna take it. Matt: Okay. And you have a walking question that I'm gonna ask while you go. So go ahead and speed on over. Right, all right. And my question is, how
hot was Ludinus Da'leth when he was younger? Da'leth. Da'leth, could he get it? I think he could have, but I think it was beneath him. He had more important-- Oh, shit! He had more important things to focus on. There's nothing more important. There's nothing more important. There's nothing more important. The Laerryn just jumped out
at me like, what do you mean? That's nothing. Ludinus suffered a lot of trauma at the tail end of the calamity and it very much informed his his layer of goals and importance.
Coward. So you're saying he was
alive at the end of the calamity? I think I've alluded to that already. And it couldn't be me. Yeah, but there's a
difference between alluding to it and actually saying it out
loud in front of these cameras. That's what the show's about. Hey guys.
Exactly. Hey!
Hey! All right, let's see what we got here. There we go. That'll slide out. Aabria: That was so slick. Oh, whoop. All right, that's a 47. 47, I didn't even know they go that high. We all got two. Do-do, do-do. (chuckles) From Caboodle jr. Caboodle jr!
On Twitter. I'm not calling it that other name. "What can you share about the logistics behind bringing on surprise guests? How do you avoid cross contamination with having everyone in the studio? Have there ever been close calls of the primary players
discovering surprise guests?" Well, there's normally a
couple days of rehearsal where we map everything out. Yeah. I send you all your scripts ahead of time. Yeah, we write the script and... To a certain extent, like Marisha usually knows
because her production team has to coordinate
schedules with the actors. Though she won't have more information beyond the fact that we're
bringing these guests in. We try and keep them very separate and have call times staggered in a way so where the players have begun recording, they can come in and arrive after the fact and kind of sit in to hang out. If it's not that big of a deal, then we can be a little more lax. But that's the intent when we do sort of like guest crossover and surprise the rest of the players. So yeah, it's a challenge. But our production team
does a really good job of reaching out to folks and
figuring out what scheduling and timing works for the
episodes and who's available and make sure that we can
do it in a way that makes sense, and then we feel it out from there. That's basically-- Kind of like a magic trick, honestly. It really is. But also, a lot of it
depends on the availability and willingness of you
guys to come and play too. So I'm always thankful
for y'all being flexible. Oh, I will drop everything. Everything.
Everything. Sometimes some of your
players are pretty stupid and know they're supposed to be sneaking in and when they park, sometimes Liam will be going
to his car in the parking lot and I'll get outta the car
and wave at him and then go, "I'm a secret!" And duck behind the car and go, I don't know if that worked
or not or if he saw me. Hey, what are you doing here? I'm just picking up a T-shirt. I left my glasses here. I waved so I was like, "yeah, no!" (laughs) Aimee: Incredible. Anyway, Deanna was a perfect surprise. Look, look To finish answering that question, it's very much like the parents trying to hide their Christmas presents, but they know their kids
are still looking for 'em throughout the house. Aimee: And they'll find them. They'll find them eventually. You do your best. You do your best. (laughs) Sometimes you don't do your best. Are we pulling more blocks or are we good? Yeah, let's pull another block. You go.
My turn again! Yeah.
Okay. Go, make us proud. I'm going. Go from the bottom, coward. All right.
Yeah, dude. (hollers) If you have a single digit
you have to go again. (overlapping hollering) Liam: On a center beam! Let's go.
Right. Matt: What could possibly go wrong? Aabria: Nothing. Nice! All right, all right. It is precarious.
Yes. So is my bladder. I have to pee, but I'll wait. Don't make me laugh. From lotl42, Lotl, I guess. Axolotl. From lotl42 on Discord, "What do each of your characters believe is the best case scenario
for how their adventures will eventually end? What do each of your characters believe is the worst case scenario for how their adventures
will eventually end?" Ooh. Orym thinks the best case
and very hard to pull off, it would be to stop Luda in his tracks. The worst case... And Orym has been frustrated
with people around him. It's because he hears
again and again, just like well, the gods don't always help us. And I mean, he's not super religious, but people sound so sure
that everything could be fine when the people they're dealing with, their track record so
far has been pretty awful and there's no guarantees
that they're in control. Especially if you've got, and Bells Hells could
kind of tell this a little bit, that Ludinus and the Weave
Mind are two separate parties following their own aims. There's no guarantees that
anything's gonna end well. So I think Orym is like
the worst case scenario is that they're going to intentionally or unintentionally rip open the sky or bring mass levels of destruction on ordinary people, on all people. And nothing that anyone can say is going to assure them
that that's not gonna happen. And then right now to him, it seems like the much
more likely scenario. Oof. That's rough.
Damn, that's great. You have to answer twice
because you've got two guys. Okay, so for Opal, best case scenario is if there's ever a
battle, she does her duty and then maybe convinces
the Spider Queen to let her go. Save my life, we can talk, babe. After she serves her
time. and then she can- She served her nickel. You know, served her time. So that's best case scenario. Worst case scenario is she's
gotta die defending that bitch and that would really suck. (laughs) You know.
It's pretty rough. For Deni$e, best case scenario is obviously reuniting with her boy, her love Dariax and having babies and living happily ever after. So many babies.
Yeah. But I think worst case
scenario is that she spends... I don't wanna make her
a stalker 'cause she's not, but she's been at it a
little too long at this point. So she's got something
to, she's gotta figure it out. Like if she doesn't find him
in the next couple of days, then I think she's gotta face her fears, which is, time to start over. I think she's of the
mind that she was like, I put my fucking time in with this man. The best years of my life with this man.
Yes, yes. She's not ready to give it up. And I think worst case for her, 'cause I think she is thinking about having been on team Issylra and having had the question come up and she's like fuck 'em, I don't know. I don't fuck with the gods that much. I don't know. So she's very much of like, who cares? So yeah, I don't think
she's thinking about that. I think her worst case
scenario is having to start over, having to have gone a first date, and then also having these people that are chasing her down because of the money
that she and Dariax owe. Them chasing her down, finding her, and then all of her
dreams of domestic bliss go out the window. Well, the good news is when
the atmosphere sets on fire, they will not care. They won't care about. They'll care a little.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But less.
Yeah. He's got like a little
thing of brumestone too. So he's got money. He's got money, she just has to get it. Just get it from him. Grab that stone, girl. Grab the rocks and run. (laughs) It's just nice and floaty. (laughs) Nope, nope. I'm above it. Deanna's best case scenario is getting to help her
friends save the world 'cause she doesn't have
anything else tethering her to life other than being of service. And I think her worst case scenario is being left alone again
and having to live alone 'cause even in death, she
was a part of something bigger. So I think just isolation is the worst thing she can think of. Where do you think that Laerryn is in the metaphysical universe? Aimee: I love her so much. God, Laerryn is watching all of this with Quay by her side and I think she's waiting to see, 'cause I think there's
something inside of her that understands exactly
what Ludinus is doing and that contempt for deity is a thing that runs
through the Age of Arcanum and wizards like him, like he is a legacy
of her type of thinking. Interesting question. Where do you think her
spiritual energy has landed? That's what I was wondering.
Ooh! Because for instance, like we discussed metaphysics in Exandria. Spirits that have faith and keep to the morals
and guide of their faith, they will wander, their spirits
will wander to those realms and become part of that realm, maintaining some
aspect of their individuality depending on the
strength of their character and want to maintain that. But they'll become a part
of the energy of that space. Those that don't sometimes, or agnostic will wander towards a realm that is closest to their morality and kind of become part
of that in a natural way. Others might wander between astrally or others just linger
as spirits and ghosts. Laerryn is wandering the astral plane looking for Evandrin. Aimee: Oh, bye. That's it. Matt: I love it. Yeah.
That's fucked up. I love it. Yeah. (laughs) For sure. Aimee: God, that's so good. Best case scenario for Ludinus would be-- Oh, yeah! (laughs) Liam: Lay it all out for if all goes well. Nah, it's all good, No, Dariax... I mean, best case scenario, he just continues to tell himself that everyone's handling some big stuff and when they're done--
You started sad. They'll come find me and they'll pick up where they left off. Worst case scenario, they don't. He's a follower through and through. He's the type of
personality that he's happiest when he's following somebody else's wake. You know, he loves supporting others. He's not a guiding soul by any means. And so I think that that feeling of being completely unmoored and
aimless will lead him down some dark paths of being easily exploited and manipulated by others who see that sort of weakness in him. So I think that'd be the worst. That's why he needs Deni$e. Aabria: Yeah! She gives a fuck, you know, she cares. She's the best toxic thing to ever happen. You know!
Aw! Listen, I don't wanna sound like the girl in "Baby Reindeer," but
you know, if we are together, like I'll take care of you, you know? (laughs) Aabria: Amazing. There was some like
De Niro breathing on you. (huffs) It's creepy, it's creepy. It's creepy. Say, when Deni$e inhabits you, it's a very different energy. Very different energy. I love it. (laughs) She's the realest... Deni$e with a dollar
sign, I will never forget because that was the first
time we played together. Yeah, that was the first character-- And the first thing you said, I was like, we is a high fantasy thing. Introduce your character and you're like, "My name's Deni$e with a dollar sign and I love bottle service." I'm like, she didn't
listen to anything I said! Don't judge me! Aabria: She's perfect, I love her. (laughs) Well, I think we were... Weren't we at a poolside club or something? Yeah--
The first time. With old timey terms. And you were like, got it, Miami. Yeah, she wants the Patron. At the time, that was the best we could do. Gamora Patron is pretty solid too. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. (laughs) Best case scenario, Vax is not a ball. (laughs) Oh my God, I forgot your ass is a marble! Worst case scenario, he stays a ball. Oh, my. (laughs) Aabria: How does it
feel to just be a little guy? Round. (laughs) Spherical. (hollering) What a nightmare. That's the worst case scenario. Man. Worse than death.
Gyroscopes. Spinning on all directions Dani: My boy! I forgot. Matt: Sorry- He's just running like a- I don't mean to keep
torturing your first character. No, it's good. In our campaigns, but the bad guys like torturing him so bad. He's running like a hamster
in there, just real fast. Real fast. Just running that bridge. That's what's powering him. He's running a thousand miles an hour. Aabria: That's so- He's pretty good at it. Dani: He's really fast though. Yeah.
Fast. There is just something that's so beautiful about love exploited. It's just, mm, mm. Yeah.
That's nice. All right. Shit, okay, let's move on. That was great. What a good question. Thank you so much Caboodlejr and lotl42. And if you have any evergreen fan question or even a timely fan question
for our tower of inquiry, you can enter it at critrole.com/tower. Yeah, they don't need to be
evergreen, but let's be real. This shit is pre-taped, so stick around for more sided dive. For more 4-Sided Dive because we'll be playing for the Queen! Oh! Matt: Yeah. Okay, thanks bye. Liam: Game time, game time. Okay, bye.
