Idek.

Every character has a backstory that tethers them to the current present day in the narrative. Bolaire’s backstory is treaded across 70+ years from when he was created, to the gods, the wars, and to today. His consciousness is chopped up along the timeline and doesn’t run smoothly as compared to 800 year old Vaelus who has actively lived all of her life or the Druid circles and orc rebels who have a lot of established history.

Several characters were brought in with backstory but are revealing and discovering their history of past in present day action. Kattigan, Teor, Hal, and Murray are all along these lines. They’re vibing in the now of it all, but have had their history addressed. Kattigan’s family, Teor being Loza’s mentee of the torn banner, Hal having conflict with war and killing, Murray leaving her family business and losing criminal respect. There’s other characters & NPCs who simply don’t care for the world to return to the past; Thaisha and Aranessa’s distaste for shaper sympathizers and are two people more focused on healing the current world for a better future.

Even Occtis and Wick who are large narrative assets to the story are basically next gen of their families. They have a lot of say and power in what the world becomes through politics, they have to choose to continue their respective family’s beliefs about common folk, wealth classes, power structures, or work with the rebellion and create a new cloth. We see this same challenge presented to Julien from his mother insisting he buy into the political game and take a wife and have kids whereas Julien sees that as playing into the Tachonis game and the future never changes if he complies to what’s expected of him but that course of action ignores the problem not addresses and resolves it. As shitty of a person Julien is to others, he is fighting for a better future for all.

So every time we get to Bolaire, all his issues/problems/past/backstory are dead arcs. The halflings who created the Panto haven’t been named, the gods are dead, the wars were 15ish years ago, Thjazi is dead. So of course Bolaire is going to grind the narrative to a halt. Nothing he has to explore is in the “right now” of the timeline. And Thimble counters this really well. She also had a past with faerie closing, wars, and Thjazi, and yet she’s been able to adapt and find current day motivations and aspirations and more importantly: connections.

The schemers table was an unfortunate confrontation of how much they’re distant co-workers. Bolaire is parasitically attached to the idea of Hal. In their entire friendship, he never bothered once to tell Hal the truth of what he was even after being invited into the man’s home and being called Uncle by his children. Bolaire had to be backed into a corner with the sewer fight in order for his true nature to be revealed. Now that his connection to Hal is strained, he’s grasping for anything and pining down Thimble trying to make her make amends for Thjazi’s actions because surely “she knew everything” except that’s already been disproved several times now and Bolaire won’t stop insisting otherwise, basically undermining Thimble’s version.

Bolaire has a mental mind theatre putting on plays of other people’s lives, warping them to his vision, under his control. As much as he wants to go on about how unwell his sister Termina is, he’s also deeply fucked up. Bolaire didn’t look for his siblings, he assumed they were dead and Termina didn’t take that well. This is something for him to reflect on as a brother who neglected his siblings, but he keeps diminishing Termina’s sense of self and sanity like her feelings aren’t valid and he did nothing wrong (we’ve seen him do this to Thimble, Murray, Thaisha, and even Vaelus now—look I don’t think he’s misogynistic but Bolaire definitely has a problem with strong-willed/strong minded individuals. He’s meant to tear down tyrants and believes mortals are the new gods now. He was created to put on a play, an act to fall a controlling reign—Thjazi was a leader with followers willing to listen to what he planned and carry it out, he fits the profile Bolaire is meant to distaste. So does Thaisha, Murray, and Thimble who all have people willing to listen and follow them, but Vaelus won’t be in awe of his performance, therefore they all conflict his narrative & nature). But instead of acknowledging the choices he chose to do all this time of his sentient existence, he deflects it back to a dead man who is the thorn of his life who can’t speak his side of the story. If Thjazi was such a problem for Bolaire to live his life he should have no problem wanting to do that now, except he’s still refusing to take accountability in the part he played for their dynamic growing sour. He’s still hiding information, he’s still refusing to grow in his own life, refusing to choose to heal and therefore holds himself back and yet blames Thjazi who is dead and can’t literally affect him anymore so Bolaire’s argument becomes moot and null.

Not every PC was created by their player to explore the same exact story and narrative aspects, that’s why there’s different tables for different genre and interests. If c4 was broken into individual books with 80-100k words for each PC to be a proper main character perhaps Bolaire’s story would translate better. But unfortunately when it’s a collaborative playthrough rooted in current narrative improv and cemented written backstory with 13 “main characters” and endless NPCs as various story elements is gonna be hard to get more than 1 PC to be interested in exploring something buried into the ground that isn’t relative to current day plot/story progression—especially when only 1 PC knows about said thing but refuses to talk about it. Add in that arcs have been 6/7 episodes and the Schemers spent a lot of time 1-on-1 with NPCs than exploring each other’s characters compared to the Soldier and Seeker arcs.

My cup of tea: Thimble, Kattigan, Tyranny

Butter biscuits: Thaisha, Vaelus

Teaspoon: Wick, Occtis

Stale cookies: Azune, Halandil

Not my jam: Bolaire, Julien, Murray

Broken mug (rip): Teor

Did Thjazi grant Julien a death boon of haunting his ass from beyond the grave via the shadow? If so, Thjazi Fang is still cracking jokes even in death. Top tier antics sir, I respect the sillies

What’s interesting about Julien’s choice is if you change the character. Several times he walked away from people who “don’t matter” in his mind, but what if it was Thaisha and Vaelus in Cyd and Teor’s spot instead? Would his choice change, especially after the Seeker’s arc? Vaelus is a defined warrior, sister of Sylandri sent to retrieve the stone, her disappearance will raise questions. Thaisha is a Druid to the circle of ancients, a Lloy, and a mother to one of Julien’s mentees. Julien fights to stay alive to return to his loved ones, but how will witnessing and coming to terms with condemning other people’s loved ones like the Pridesire brothers affect him? Will Kattigan or Thimble be inclined to help Julien knowing he could’ve tried to save their friends but chose not to? Will Julien’s ignorance and dismissal of other’s value because they hold no benefit to him be his own downfall?

Azune’s heritage/culture. Travis could come back as a dragonrider. Maybe an elven dragonrider, could be older than Vaelus, help with the age disparity of the group some more lol. Could even help Vaelus with the elven curse and potentially any other curses to other species. Vaelus and Azune are characters who have been struggling to connect to society, Travis could thread the needle and be a cheerleader for these PCs to come out of their shell some more.

A Druid who isn’t in a circle. Is it mandatory? Are there free roam Druids? Field/commonfolk/ shepherding Druids? Travis and Aabria jock corner once again!!

Someone attached to the primordial reign, an age of time prior to the shapers’ creator species existing on the world. Someone tied to its lingering primordial power or lived during the era

Shadow/Darkness magic build. So far shadows=bad and light=figment. There isn’t a real “true hope/honest belief” that Teor’s magic seemed to have. Maybe Travis can try again from a different angle as we’re touching on Tyranny being a demon isn’t bad, just her nature. So maybe we can recontextulize shadows and darkness as nature instead of “inherently bad/evil” because of Sundered Houses and Shaper curses. Shadow Monk, anyone??

Historian/Totality, someone interested in digging deeper to past mistakes to heal the current day could be really interesting for this campaign. Someone who doesn’t pick sides, just sees history as world history no matter who it involves, and uses their power to prevent history repeating in the worst ways. Could also hit base on the class disparity of poor versus rich.

Bonus action healer…look not to say divine smite isn’t great for paladins. But a healing word after two attacks is maybe a better option than cure wounds and no attacks. Table balance wise needs some more healing and martial builds. Just somebody who can attack, take hits, and pop some clutch healing. I do think the less spell mechanics the better for Travis, so likely not a full spellcaster as it’s a magic heavy table already

Temporary Hit Point build. Look, they changed THP interaction in 2024 rules. A lot more subclasses grant them but Twilight Cleric could still be really good in this universe. How? Theurgist Wizard. Travis won’t need to heal if he prevents damage for the whole group. It’s basically a cleric and Wizard wrapped into one subclass with heavy flavoring of nighttime. He could go frontline build martial with truestrike+enhance weapon, heavy support with range spells, tank build with mage armor+shield of faith+shield & a warding bond to reduce someone else’s damage intake or blade ward and resistance cantrips, there’s many options but it would be a “lock in” type of demand, maybe too much for him. This would be a challenge but an absolute game changer mechanically.

Another beastfolk but tiger style. Gotta keep the furries interested and romance off the table. Could subvert expectations of a dex build by going strength. I do think we need a dedicated strength guy. Kattigan is both strength and dexterity but can only be at 1 table. Julien is Dex martial no magic. Thimble is Dex build rogue. Azune is strength just more spellcaster rn. Vaelus is Dex and charisma. We need a 18/20 strength score in strength from Travis or Kattigan will never be able to pick up his wisdom stat for ranger spells.

We have a lot of nobility folks, sundered or other, we honestly don’t need more. We have some falconers left, we don’t need more. I really do feel like we need an open world adventurer that Teor was meant to represent, someone who wants discovery about the real world of Aramán’s “today” time, someone who can float between communities yet feels rich with lived in wisdom and experience of life to help ground player characters. Travis likes to play for his friends, be a player in a team dynamic, he’s talked about not liking solo backstory exploration for himself but giving space to his fellow table-mates and elevating their stories. He created Teor within 2 weeks to play a game of D&D with friends. There’s 5 keystones and he focused on swords (combat) and family (finding his brother Cyd).

Teor was the first person to reassure Kattigan he was missed and welcomed back. And Kattigan’s last words to him were “separation makes the heart grow fonder.” They’ll never be battle buddies again. They’ll never share watch by a campfire, the wise old war guys kicking it back together.

Teor is really the first PC death for Travis that doesn’t feel intentional on his part. Yes it was always possible. I don’t think it could happen to anyone better because Travis is the cheerleader of his friends/the button pusher for himself. This is a guy who grew up on sportsmanship and camaraderie.

Yes, it’s absolutely sad we won’t know more about Teor and Cyd outside of flashbacks, but it gives a great story of tragedy and further developments of dynamics for PCs and their players to explore.