so you’d say you’re a bit vexed

THE ZEPHYR. The Zephyr Mark I is "one of the very first flying vessels, only 3 years after the initial test of friodynamic lift." By the time the events of canon begin, it's considered somewhat of an antique. It's about 120ft long, for game mechanical purposes. (A brachiosaurus would JUST BARELY fit onto the ship if they were to remove some guns.) Per episode 6, the Zephyr has a legitimate bathtub (we also get a number of jokes about there being a hot tub aboard, but that feels less concretely canonical, lol). The Zephyr relies on a number of consumable resources to stay afloat, all of which appear to be measured game-mechanically in 'drams.' These include: -bituminous (real) or trituminous (fictional) coal as a fuel source, utilized at the rear of the ship. -arctica iodide, which is employed around the balloons to chill them, thus generating friodynamic lift from the "regular air" inside them. (Using the combat minis for reference, I think it's possible the arctica iodide is applied to the netting that is rigged around the balloon(s) holding them in place? etc.) Comfrey MacLeod invented/pioneered the friodynamic lift system, which was kind of her big one when it came to aviation innovation. -'gargatium steel' and 'inertialine,' possibly used for ship repairs or weaponry purposes. In episode 19, Monty makes an attack on the Straka with the Zephyr II's 'iridescent inertialine launcher' that coats it in the inertialine, granting attack rolls against it advantage for one hour, which is huge.

The Zephyr I (though now destroyed in the wastes of Zern) gained a number of helpful modifications from the crew of the Gullfaxi: a giant boxing glove; the dragon-spout sprayer (fire); the mine launcher; the wind turbine motivator (of You're Meat fame); and a spring-loaded platform. Some of these replaced elements the Zephyr I's previous weapons loadout. The party makes these mods collaboratively in APIX, starting around 18:25.

MR. BIG BRITCHES. The party builds Mr. Big Britches in a Zernian forge, out of parts they salvage from the surrounding scrap. The name 'Mr. Big Britches' is initially discussed/established above table/out of game, but they then absolutely all just immediately start doing it in character as well. Compared to the Zephyr, the control panel of Mr. Big Britches is described as having way more, like, Big Levers And Knobs energy. One of the lore elements I thought was neatest about Mr. Big Britches's construction is that the shields on the big barrier arms that are salvaged for it appear simultaneously "mechanical and archaic," as if in ages long past, the lands of Zern did have knights and giants and all the trappings of a fantasy universe, but still all just rendered in clockwork. extremely cool. OTHER MODIFICATIONS EQUIPPED TO MR. BIG BRITCHES INCLUDE: rear attack buzzsaw arm (a la scorpion tail); two sets of double ('crab') legs; windshield (for cover); fine motor skill arms (more dexterous); lube tube arm (flammable fluid); quadruple machine gun (includes an AOE option); triple-tail flail; and of course the zoodquake arm (for stunning. and absolutely not other things).

OUR WIND RIDERS. (Again, my eye here was to try to specifically pinpoint stuff that a) might be easily forgotten/overlooked and b) might NOT be easily Google-able or located on the fandom wiki. Some of this is sparse because I'm not spending as much time on things I think are common knowledge, easier to find, or less explicitly relevant. I apologize if I have missed out on info you are looking for!! I would honestly be happy to go diving for more specifics upon request and update this post as needed tbh)

When we meet our protagonists in the 'prologue' segment of episode 1, the Gathie year is 1363. The events of canon take place in 1382, ninenteen years later. Comfrey, described as being in her 60s in this prologue, would therefore be 79 at the youngest in a non-befrumpled canon timeline; Maxwell is 29 in canon, so is 9 or 10 in this prologue, and Olethra goes from being an infant to being freshly 20. Marya, the next youngest, is canonically 43 years old (ep3), so she's in her early 20s in this flashback, and Daisuke is very close to Comfrey's same age--I think at different times he says he's either 80 or 81. We don't get concrete ages on Van or Monty, but they're somewhere in the middle; Van has been traveling with Comfrey from the very start, so I think maybe she's a little bit older. There's one moment where Lou, in the throes of a bit in episode 11, says he's "forty-eight," but it seems WILD to me that he'd be only five years older than Marya, especially with the emphasis everyone puts on how young she was comparatively/calling her the "kid," etc; Monty also makes another joke/wry remark in episode 16 about "feeling 27," in a kind of nostalgic way, and that makes more sense to me, if he was around 27 in their earliest heyday together and thus about 9-10 years older than Marya, putting canon-era Monty in his early 50s.

The Wind Rider Society hosts, (or used to host,) an annual society meeting at the Hotel Ipswich. There IS an Adventuring Party where Brennan is discussing the Gotch family naming convention, and expresses that the sons of Cadswitch's generation would all be -switches the same way Maxwell and his brothers are all -wells, and the other example he gives is "Ipswitch." I think it'd be totally legit to explore the idea that Maxwell's great-uncle Ipswitch channeled his chunk of the family fortune into being a hotel magnate.

In episode 2, there is also an offhanded reference (I think from Marya) to a time when the Wind Riders "quested for the fruit of immortality" together. Would love to hear more about that. In episode 8, there are casual/maybe only loosely canonical references to their last "heist" being in the Kabilian Isles in 1372.

Year-based code references the Wind Riders seem to have for other maneuvers include: Pilby, '71 - Marya says it means "brace," but brace for what seems a little ambiguous. Definitely refers to hot, heavy gun-based violence. Pilby, '69 - Might be a real one or might just be Van/Siobhan making a 69 joke. Pilby, '67 - Stealth. A lot going on in Pilby. (Might be more of these I failed to document. I decided to add this bit last-minute and admit I only skimmed.)

THE GOTCH RETAINERS. Captain Miryam Deathblade Dawderdale is initially described as wearing a Karakamachi uniform, but she identifies as a "Gotch family courier," and eventually we come back around to those blue and red uniforms being identifiably Gotch-coded, with the dog-headed cyclone guys in Zumhara. By the time we are in Zood, our crew of Gotch retainers is established to be a solid six: security officers Diaz and Polaximus, engineer Jackway St. Niles, navigator Haruki Norwich (who falls in love and stays in Tabira) and lieutenant Agarwahl (who finds his long-lost biangle'd twin brother and also stays in Tabira), and Dawderdale herself.

OLETHRA MACLEOD, CANONICALLY.

Olethra is following the 'mastermind' subclass of the rogue class, which is what gives her the ability to use the Help action as a bonus action. The MechLeod is a barbarian with a homebrewed 'battle mech' sort of subclass that looks to me like it draws a lot from the RAW 'wild magic' barbarian subclass, just respecced into steampunk technological bullshit instead of classic DnD Magic™.

The other old-guard Wind Riders have all changed Olethra's diapers. (ep3)

Olethra describes herself as "small." (ep7)

Olethra has had one girlfriend, ever, and it was kind of a big deal, but then it fizzled out, and there weren't really any other options for dating in her small town. (APIX)

Olethra's attempts at matchmaking are all bad because she is twenty years old. and doesn't know anything, but thinks she does. (APIX)

the MacLeod Ranch guinea fowl have been trained to locate drugs. (ep1)

I cannot BELIEVE that in episode 8, Ally originally says that Olethra is rolling Investigation checks for any information about Ludmila, RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THIS ZERN-RELATED LORE DUMP, and Brennan manages to deflect with some silly Eyeless Hand stuff, and by the time it gets back to Ally they've pivoted to another thing. HE CAN'T KEEP GETTING AWAY WITH THIS.

DAISUKE BUCKLESBY, CANONICALLY.

Daisuke is following the 'gunslinger' subclass of the fighter class, as homebrewed by Matt Mercer for Critical Role campaign 1, I think modified from the semi-analogous Pathfinder ruleset. His two 'trick shot' features from this subclass are Forceful Shot and Violent Shot.

Biscuit(s) is the revolver/handgun and Gravy is the long-range rifle.

Pet names between Daisuke and Comfrey include 'sweet pea' and 'fluffernutter.' (ep16)

MARYA JUNKOVA, CANONICALLY, AND ALSO HER RAT FRIEND KOČKA.

Marya is following the 'battle smith' subclass of the artificer class. Among other things, this subclass is where the use of Kočka as her steel defender comes from.

The first time Marya flew (was it specifically the Zephyr?) she was 18 (ep2). When Marya began skycaptaining a ship of her own, that ship was the Kingfisher, which is the one that fell to the Straka.

An argument could be made that it's Marya who coined the portmanteau 'MechLeod,' as opposed to just calling it 'the Prototype.' (ep3)

According to Marya and a Scrapsylvanian proverb, "to forgive 3 lies, you just have to kill 1 serpent." this is apparently also a thing among the Fehujar. incredible. (ep9)

Marya had a Wind Rider tattoo, but she intentionally scratches it out in episode 11.

Marya's gun is named Katerina after her first girlfriend. She named the gun after her after just two dates, which was Too Much, and they both agreed that Katerina should dump Marya, thus ending the relationship. (ep13)

Marya ends up with a total of 8 "Straka" bullets. (ep19)

When the Queen of Zern attempts to contact Marya telepathically through the disanimated Torse, Kočka can also hear the message, because Ludmila is broadcasting without knowing he is there and thus doesn't know to exclude him. This made me so freaking SAD that's her RAT

Ludmila (and Marya?) stole 'serums from Eisengeist' (I have to assume from the Ministry of Deranged Science) to make Kočka into an intelligent, familiar-style animal instead of a mundane rat. hehe. (ep8)

MONTGOMERY LAMONTGOMMERY, CANONICALLY.

Monty is following a subclass of the ranger class that has been largely homebrewed to eliminate spellcasting and focus on connecting to the natural world. He is using at least one feature from the 'monster slayer' subclass (Slayer's Prey).

His book series is referred to in episode 2 as "The Hazardous Happenings of Montgomery LaMontgommery," collectively.

The name of his shotgun is Fortuno.

May have had a knee injury in 1373 that continues to flare up. (ep5)

Monty doesn't include romance between the Wind Riders in his novels, but they are not devoid of romance between Monty and "strangers," such as one that has something to do with a "moon priestess." (ep9)

Monty is the first among the PCs to sort of accurately clock and interpret the Time Befrumplement situation, which makes SO much sense to me, as someone extremely in tune with the rhythms of the natural world. (ep14)

MAXWELL GOTCH, CANONICALLY, AND ALSO SOME OF THE OTHER GOTCHES.

Maxwell is following the 'squared circle' subclass of the pugilist class, which has a specialty in using grapples and shoves. This subclass gives him abilities like 'To The Mat' and 'Meat Shield.' (SIDE NOTE: Upon reaching level 6 in the pugilist class, a character gains the ability 'Moxie-Fueled Fists,' which would see their unarmed strikes "count as magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to non-magical attacks and damage"--meaning Max technically didn't have to bother with the whole business of converting Torse's old gold heart to brass knuckles in order to accomplish damaging strikes on the Straka, though I guess maybe he also did this hoping it would be extra effective a la the golden bullets, even though I don't think mechanically that ended up being true--?, largely because he barely attacked anyone but the Corrodi and his own fucking family. BUT REGARDLESS, THANK GOD HE DID, OR WE WOULDN'T HAVE GOTTEN "SO CLENCHES A WORTHY FIST," SO,)

Maxwell is an alumnus of Revington, while Wealwell attended Biffmore and Hatwell graduated from Griphall.

A particularly loathed competitor of Maxwell's at Revington was a dude named Bobby Blaneport. (ep7)

The first person to call Maxwell "key boy" is Van, but Daisuke immediately doubles down. (ep11)

The Gotch brothers all have tailored, perfectly molded underwear. (ep3)

Cadswitch Gotch is explicitly referred to as a "banker," and Longspot mentions "the bankers' guild of the CIR." (ep1)

While Max heads out to the MacLeod ranch, Samwell is sent to Comfrey's primary laboratory in Eisengeist, and Hatwell is sent to the Kabilian Isles. (ep1)

Cadswitch died in 1373, about nine years ago in the canon timeline. This was sort of the last straw before tensions began running high with Comfrey and her plans all fell apart, because losing Cadswitch meant losing her primary source of funding. (ep11)

Longspot has ended up $850k in debt to Mordecestershire and the Ministry as a result. (ep14)

Yes, I did just write "sorry I'm just looking at Murph's nipples" in my notes for APXIII. Join me, won't you.

KEY BOY! Over the course of the series, Maxwell uses Cadswitch's keys to open:

The stone tower door in the Gathie south pole research station.

The identical tower door in the Ramansu station, which gets us into the room with Torse.

The gift in principle book of Zoodian/Zernian technological information that the Queen of Zern gave to the Eyeless Hand, found deep in Comfrey's Ramansu office.

The door buried under the snow at the ectic research station, and then ALSO the identical stone tower here. (Possibly the key was just boner-pointing toward the inner door and didn't actually unlock the outer door, since I think part of this also involved Torse buzzsawing us in.)

The door buried under the silt at the temple of Katur, which is, yes, another stone tower. I AM CURIOUS IF the SAME key is opening EVERY stone tower and the other keys on the key ring are to other things, or if it's one key per tower; if it's the latter, the amount of Key Usages would exceed the canonical six keys of the practical prop.

The secret door in the smooth section of the front wall of the Amphereon.

The door to the crystal Heart of Zood engine that sustains the Prime Disruption.

VANELLOPE CHAPMAN, CANONICALLY, AND ALSO HER HUSBAND BERT AND SOME OTHER CHAPMANS.

Van starts the season with some levels in the fighter class but also at least one secret level in warlock. I have looked everywhere for the fighter subclass I swear I thought Van had--I specifically remember when she utilized her ability (which I believe is called Into the Fray) wherein she can roll a bunch of extra attacks as part of the attack action, but only if she targets different creatures with each one. I swear I saw that in some official or at least semi-official play material I read BEFORE watching Cloudward Ho, and then when she utilized it I was like yeah, of course she's that one! that makes so much sense! and now I've googled to shit and can't find it, I guess, and i feel like booboo the fool. Anyway. Her warlock leveling is very obviously following the 'fathomless' subclass. Post-Tazgw'agwafication, when Van shifts to paladin, she's following the 'oath of the open sea' subclass, another Critical Role homebrew. (Originally used by Fjord in CR campaign 2, who also is a sailor who then became a warlock who then became a paladin!, so it makes a ton of sense and I love their parallels.)

Van's grandfather died ("died") while working for Mordecestershire and protecting his family vessel. (ep1)

Van's nan, who was also named Vanellope (Vanellope Antigone Persephone von Malkings-somethingerother…), was like, THEE pirate, the most notorious Chapman. (ep3)

When Van uses her Elevated Sight warlock feature, her pupils change shape to more resemble an octopus's. (ep4)

Van's fought in fighting pits before Umanzi, and specifically mentions Grand Kabilia in 1374. (ep5)

The prosthesis made for Van by Comfrey is riveted directly to her bone, and is barometrically sealed. Some of the gauges are measuring Van's biometrics while others measure extraplanar activity. (ep8)

Van's Last Ride was flying with Comfrey about five years ago, looking for Zood. They flew into a storm that seemed pretty run-of-the-mill, but Something Was In There (tazgw'agwa), and they all got Eldritch Horror-style terrified, and between that and the winds of the storm they were unable to turn around and the only way they could proceed was by descending toward the sea. The monstrosity in the clouds was being reflected by the surface of the water, and that's the last thing Van remembers about it (ep11). Van went on this journey because none of the rest of the Wind Riders were going, and she was worried about Comfrey, who at the time already seemed "off." (ep8)

Van mentions the Chapman family "curse" as having taken "her dad, her uncles, and three of her older brothers," which implies to me that much like Maxwell, Van also has a ton of older siblings, and I LOVE what that means re: the ways in which they bonded a little more quickly early on. (ep17)

Also in episode 17, there's a sort of Van/Comfrey/Tazgw'agwa lore drop around 1:16:30.

Bert Chapman can distribute a d12 of bardic inspiration exclusively for bolstering cooking-related checks. (ep11)

OTHER ZEPHYR CREWMATES, CANONICALLY.

Onion St. Clay was identified in episode 8 as a bookkeeper. The map of Zood and Zern, showing the two braided tubes, was found in his office.

Sylvio Dufresne has a collection of fine Zoodian waxes and pomades. (ep14)

The crew aboard Comfrey's Zood-bound Zephyr II has spent a little under 10 total years in Zood, in amongst their moving back and forth. When we encounter the Zephyr II in canon, they're on their fifth discrete mission to Zood. (ep14)

COMFREY MACLEOD: A TIMELINE.

Daisuke and Comfrey got divorced around 13 years pre-canon (ep8). In the episode 1 flashback, which takes place ~19 years ago, I don't think they're married yet?, so they were probably only legally ("legally") wed for about 5 years before things got weird again.

Comfrey's "decline" and more fanatical obsession with Zood began about 10 years pre-canon (ep1).

Cadswitch Gotch died in 1373, nine years pre-canon; the year after this is about the last time Olethra saw Comfrey, and is also the period in which Comfrey and Monty had their big falling out. (ep8/ep11)

Van's Last Ride™ with Comfrey was about 5 years pre-canon, and by that point, she was the only one of the PCs still trucking with Comfrey; this puts the wreck of the Kingfisher and the timeloopy loss of Ludmila to the Straka sometime between 1374 and 1377(?). Which means that by that time ("time"), Comfrey had already been to Zood at least once, since she knew enough to know the Straka was coming and intercede on Marya's behalf.

APVII implies that Comfrey has been fully MIA for seven or eight months, but in episode 2, Mordcestershire indicates he last spoke with her about two and a half months ago. I imagine this means she was in Zood the whole (Gath) time in between those two things, and came back around then only to disappear back to Zood again.

She recorded the broadcast at Ramansu in mid-Tahal, and the PCs arrive in Zood in early Amravi--in Zood time, this has been a little less than half a year.

Sometime that same Tahal (I assume), Comfrey had her sordid 3-week affair with Goldbeard. I imagine she was fooling around with him, went back to Ramansu to check up on some stuff, realized she was Made™ by Fehujar, panicked, and recorded the broadcast before bailing--hence her seeming, from his perspective, to fully disappear from his life. (I also have to assume Torse was still at Ramansu and did not accompany her in her time with Goldbeard, considering how put out and disoriented he was by Goldbeard's automaton crew, as if meeting them for the first time, haha.)

MORE ON COMFREY.

Brennan says Comfrey is not a bard but rather a "mechanic," but with the inspiration and the largely support-class action economy, it sure feels like "bard but no magic" the same way Monty is "ranger but no magic."

Prior to canon events, Comfrey was apparently the only person who had mastered the ability to travel from Zood to Zern and back while the barrier was in place, making her "the object of the queen's sole and burning attention." So Ludmila hates her for a lot of reasons. (ep8)

In episode 17, Comfrey mentions "having visions" that she needed to make Van's gauntlet prosthesis to contain the curse of Tazgw'agwa, and that she knew Tazzy could function as this barrier. This is never touched on again? girl what.

Comfrey found the stolen piece of crystal tech among Mordecestershire's things and just converted it into a pipe on a whim. When they realize what it is in episode 18, she implies that the highs she's experienced while smoking from this crystal pipe did have some lingering (hallucinatory?) effects that would hint at its true nature-- so man, did I TRY to make those two things line up, the Tazgw'agwa barrier "visions" and the trips of Zumharan history off this pipe, but I don't think the timeline checks out. but comfrey my dude. get it together.

COMFREY'S LOOT DROPS. • In the captain's quarters on the Zephyr I, Comfrey has left the ring of keys; the Ramansu cryptogram 'prophecy' that Siobhan deciphers; the Zoodian sextant; and some old narsty fruit snacks. • In Comfrey's office at Ramansu, the Wind Riders find some Wind Rider pins; the Zumharan crystal pipe; her wedding ring on a chain necklace; another cryptogram (quick brown fox); the chronometer; some correspondence between Comfrey and Cadswitch; and the fucking. hand cream/sexual unguent.

KENSINGTON COSGROVE MORDECESTERSHIRE, AND THE MINISTRY OF DERANGED SCIENCE.

The Brutes' suits use these really cool melee weapons that are like short-range spears powered by widow's-breath-hydraulic pistons. (ep2)

Two small steel tubes are pumping that Corrodi aerosolized blood stuff into Mordecestershire when we first meet him. He hasn't been to Zood or Zern yet, but he's been in communication and cultural exchange with the Queen re: the Eyeless Hand stuff already.

In APXIV, Brennan's "headcanon of stuff that is canon in [his] head" is that Mordecestershire followed the PCs into the effulgent biangle in the very same biangling, but since he snuck through last minute, it was more unstable, and yeeted him about 40 years into the past of Zood, and he's just been waiting for the Wind Riders to show up so he can get 'em.

Mordecestershire is not the founder of the Eyeless Hand, but he has been the leader of it for over a decade. (APXIV)

FREYJA ILDISDOTTIR MY BELOVED.

When she's first introduced, Brennan mentions she has bunches of Viking runes tattooed on her arms. love this for her.

Dreams of a golden hall filled with statues of horses (also gold). Freyja horse girl canon. (ep16)

I don't think her Wisdom score is very high because she fully believes that Pappy/Miryam is going well.

OUR GUY, TORSE!!!! Be prepared, I have way too much Torse analysis stuff because I'm biased.

People have theorized that Torse is specced mechanically as a paladin, and I can't argue with this. Oath of Redemption in the sense of rebelling against his servitude to an evil monarch and choosing a path of righteousness and goodness instead makes hella sense narratively, and the one combat mechanic we see him utilize--tanking damage onto himself rather than a nearby ally (or balloon) taking it--is a Redemption feature. My theory is that Torse functions in the same sense as Monty: Paladin, but homebrewed for absolutely zero true spellcasting. This would free him up to have a much lower charisma score because he wouldn't need to be using it as a functional spellcasting modifier.

The other thing about Torse mechanically is that he has CRAAAZYYY hit points, at least if he's meant to be at a comparable level to the PCs. He tanks 54 damage from Marya in episode 15, which Brennan calls "easily more than a third of his HP in a single hit"--easily more than A THIRD says to me it is not more than HALF, or Brennan would have SAID 'HALF,' which is DEMENTED to think that Torse would have 120+ hit points at where he's at. Maybe he halved it and really only took 27, maybe something else was at play there, I dunno, but regardless, you cannot convince me that constitution is not Torse's absolute highest stat. geez louise. (I think if you allow him max HP on the paladin hit die (d10) for every level he's taken, plus a +5 CON mod, plus the Tough feat, you can almost get there?? YOWZA) (The high CON/massive HP maximum is easier to explain if he's a barbarian, maybe, but he never does ANYTHING mechanically that would indicate that--no rage, no danger sense, etc. idk guys I'm in the weeds now.) (OR HE JUST HAS AN NPC/CREATURE STATBLOCK, I GUESS, BUT THAT'S LESS FUN FOR ME.)

Torse rolls fuck all for initiative in episode 10, but in episode 15 he gets a 21; I feel like if he'd rolled a nat 20 Brennan would have said as much, so to get a 21 without critting, his initiative/dexterity mod must be at least a +2, which is impressive for someone fully armored with knives for hands.

In the Katur fight, Torse is rolling with +7 to hit, and adding +4 to his damage rolls, which says to me he has +4 to strength. But then, for the attack against the Zephyr's balloons under the Queen's control in episode 15, he adds a +8. There are a few ways you could explain this, like a bonus to attack structures/inanimate objects or a strength score increase in the interim, but the one that makes the most sense to me AND feels the best is also the most obvious: he gets an extra +1 to attack while equipped with the iron heart, vs the softer and less warlike gold heart. my boy. my guy.

Supposedly Torse is 6'4" (APVII). I like that collectively we've all decided to ignore this and just make him Really Big. <3

Torse's golden heart (and I have to assume the iron one also) is described as having a tiny, tiny wind-up key; an elaborate series of coils and wind-up functions that mean that something infinitessimally small inside the heart can get wound up "with just two fingers" and still generate an incredible amount of power, refractorily. (ep8)

Torse finds his heart "difficult to attach and reattach [him]self." (ep8)

"About eighteen knived fingers" pop out of Torse's hands in combat in episode 10. He also deploys a pulley from his chest to cross the rope between the Zephyr and the Fehujar blimp, in addition to his buzzsaw blades and a "long blade" that "shoots out of his forearm" for weaponry in the Katur fight.

When referring to joining the crew of the Zephyr, Torse claims he "owes his life" to Comfrey MacLeod. He joined fairly recently; Haunch Saxon was already gone from the crew before he got there, and Torse does not know him. (ep11)

IDK, we all love Torse around here so a lot of other Zernai etc lore I feel like we've all already internalized and I didn't take a ton of notes on. lmk if there's something you wish was here and I will be happy to go back and dig it up.

"Torse seems to like Maxwell." "I like Torse." "You just like that he has knives for hands."

WEALWELL GOTCH, CANONICALLY. THE MAIN GUY OF THIS THING.

Wealwell is excellent at massage. (ep2)

Wealwell smokes a pipe (ep3), and is depicted wearing a top hat (in his combat mini, starting in ep10).

Wealwell is, canonically, absolutely ripped, due to 10+ hours a day standing muscularly. pilates-style. (ep12)

Wealwell has a -4 to insight, meaning that unless there's some other insight-specific debuff in play, his base wisdom score can't be higher than a 3. which makes Maxwell's +0 to wisdom seem absolutely worldly in compare. (ep14)

That said, Wealwell also has a +2 to intelligence, which is higher than Maxwell's +1, which is insane. (ep16)

Let us not forget Wealwell's fully practical-effect style diagetic pocketful of craft glitter (ep19). Daisuke calls him a magic pixie dream girl (ep16), and he's right to say it.

FINALLY, SOME NOTES ON SOME LORE THAT WENT UNRESOLVED/UNEXPLAINED. Something I've said a few times is that I feel like we needed just, like, three more episodes' worth of show to REALLY wrap CloHo up in a way that felt satisfying. I know that a lot of this is due to Brennan's post-episode 13 scrambling to fix the back end of the campaign now that they'd killed Mordecestershire. More stuff to do with the Gotches got woven in, mentioned just enough to function as a macguffin but not enough to feel satisfying or fully-fledged; stuff that was probably supposed to still just be Mordecestershire got pasted over with Longspot, etc. There are a few things I cannot stop thinking about that I'd love to see resolved in fanfics (or in season 2!!!!!! DROPOUT PLEASE I AM PROSTRATE BEFORE YOU). Such as:

The ceramic tile device that Marya salvaged from the Gathie south pole station. Ultimately, I feel like its only function in the narrative was to serve as an illustration that the once-unified energies of Zood and Zern had now been separated, which was a piece of intel that we needed to put together a larger picture, but the device itself didn't seem to DO anything--even just, like, measuring those energies, or calibrating something, or what. It was just kind of there. Even Torse mostly just describes what it looks like, and the fact that "tech like this" isn't/shouldn't be functioning with the Prime Disruption still in place, and that it looks like something Comfrey built or reverse engineered. but what IS it. Marya risked her life for it!!

I sat and waited the Entire Damn Season for the Chekov's gun of the magnamensa to go off again. Before the time befrumplement stuff was fully solidified, I thought maybe some of the weirdnesses surrounding Mordecestershire et al were going to be revealed as like, the same concept as the attempt to shift the Imperasaur into Courtney--that some ancient baddie was hopping bodies to stay healthy enough to pursue an ancient goal. That the Corrodi's ultimate goal would be to get magnamensa'd into organic bodies and achieve that sort of glorified "true" life. Idk, it's just wild to me to set it up conceptually and then have the Only way the players ever interact with it be the Legio Rex, who are ultimately just a side quest miniboss on their way to other stuff that's way more relevant to the story. Why introduce such a HUGE universe-affecting concept and then never touch it again past episode 8? Something else has gotta happen here.

The Mysterious Stone Towers that Comfrey seems to have installed at all of her biggest research outposts. These are described as being Gathie in origin, and having been transported here from wherever she got them from, likely in a fit of classic Comfrey pique that she failed to explain to anyone, about 2 or 3 years ago. She believes they're from someone who traveled to Zood before Comfrey ever did, who was also doing research? And Maxwell's keys, which Comfrey apparently got from Cadswitch in the first place, are the keys that ultimately open all these towers. The keys are veerrry macguffiny, too, so I'm willing to put several grains of salt on all of that, but Comfrey also mentions some ancient order of Gathie monks in conjunction with this; and there's all this other interesting weirdness, too, like all the Gathie characters experiencing a weird vertigo in the ectic station that Torse and Freyja don't; and other than the obvious adventure hook of Shahar, this is THEE element I would most want addressed/explored in a potential season 2. (If Lou's new character wanted to be a monk associated with this order… just saying…….)

We talked about the sun lion a lot as a Zoodian foil to Straka; would love to see him be more significantly relevant, and explore the actual "beast of the old world" he is and how he affects things!! Since we already met Straka and Tazgw'agwa.

This is not the sum total of my big weird notes document, which is divided out more by episode than by topic, and which I may not have chopped and screwed in the best/most thorough way to get all the deets across. BUT AT ANY RATE, I THINK IT'S BETTER THAN NOTHING. If there's a particular topic/factoid I didn't touch on that you're going "man, but I do still wish there were a place I could go to just control+F [__]," by all means let me know and I'll try to go back and dig it up and incorporate it! I TRIED TO MAKE IT AS CTRL+EFFABLE AS POSSIBLE. I want this to be HELPFUL and not just the obsessive ramblings of my PMS-fueled hyperfocus. if it helps literally anyone other than Just Me, I think I will feel satisfied that it's done its duty. thank you and Sea you in the Skies <333

ZOOD!! STARTING WITH: GEOGRAPHY.

The Effulgent Biangle drops the Wind Riders somewhere between the BIAZI DESERT to the nox and the ocean to the nef.

TABIRA CITY is an orangey city described as being built of brass and sandstone, and roaming around on huge legs. Tabira roams around about a 200-mile area of the Biazi Desert (ep5), mostly to avoid the desert's massive sandstorms and areas where the air is less clean (ep4). (The air is supposedly cleaner nearer the coastline.) Tabira, built in tiers/levels, is a frequent point of call for sky sailors, and sports "lighter, smaller landing areas" higher up in the city vs the "main" or bigger skyport lower down/elsewhere. Haunch Saxon's apartment is "near the shipyard area," but also isn't too far away from the Umanzi fighting pit, which would indicate that those two things are also fairly near one another.

From Tabira, most of the canonical points of interest are further nox: the ARENTH MOUNTAINS and the SALTU, which contain the RAMANSU POWER STATION, and beyond that, the ARENTHI COAST of the SWIRLING SEA, across which lies ODA. (ep5) In episode 6, Emily/Marya has a partial map of the area, and she flashes it toward the camera around 6 minutes in, if you want to try to get a closer look.

Tabira gets much of its fresh produce from Oda, since the desert climate is not conducive to growing things. (ep5)

the SALTU is a lush, fuchsia and lavender jungle, which was once part of the defunct, ancient ILANGAN EMPIRE. The Saltu is home to the empire's old Ramansu Power Station, but also houses the Legio Rex and various patches of Myconimus magnamensa. The Saltu is extremely topographically varied, with lots of mountainous/uneven areas.

As the party approaches Ramansu, they're traveling not only nox, but vim--the navigational equipment shows them moving past the fifth, then sixth and seventh "sub-vim parallels" (ep6). Since Brennan starts that count at 'fifth,' this could imply that Tabira City mostly exists between the fourth and fifth sub-vim parallels, further vex than Ramansu is but still far from the "equator." (Or does the fact that it's sub-vim imply that we're actually moving further vex, i.e. further 'below' vim? This is the one bit where I'm having a genuinely hard time wrapping my head around the Tube of it all, and I simply must map it onto Globe logic instead to resolve it.)

Most of the action prior to episode 8/9 is taking place far enough vim that Zern is not visible in the sky, and it's only at Torse's instruction that Marya flies far enough vex, and high enough in the atmosphere, to finally see it. In APVIII, Brennan stresses that Zern is "planetary sized," and that "if you live on the vex line, there's no sky--you look up and SEE the mass of Zern overhead." (Zern is also obscured by the masses of asteroids, where the Fehujar live, as well as I think a little bit by the residual vibes of the barrier of Zumhadi, so that's part of it too.)

The SWIRLING SEA lies between the continent Tabira is on and the continent Oda is on, noxward. It is full of "truly enormous" whirlpools, with "six to twelve" in sight at any given time, including geysers. Despite that, it's also described as beautifully tropical and picturesque, with a ton of wild colorful coral and oceanic vegetation, even miles and miles from the coast. There are also small islands dotted through the sea that give Goldbeard's squad a home base to operate from. (ep9)

ODA is across the sea from Tabira, and is the biggest "power center" on its continent (ep9). Oda is even further vim away from Zern. Oda is a relatively landlocked city/is far away from the coastline (APXI), but does contain a lot of rivers and waterways, which are the primary avenue for freight/commerce transport in the city, versus bridges and walkways being mostly reserved for pedestrians. The ruins of the Gathie "lost city of Calipan" are located in Oda, with the implication that they may have been the basis for its founding--a lot of the lore drop in Oda especially stresses that the origins of human life and society in Zood do actually lie in Gathie stuff that passed through the Effulgent Biangle, rather than culture evolving here independently. (ep 12)

The ECTIC LINE of Zood functions much like the arctic circle of a spherical planet would--it's dark, it's cold, and everything is overshadowed by the presence of Zern immediately overhead at true vex. Comfrey's ECTIC RESEARCH STATION is vex by nef from where they depart toward it from the Swirling Sea; Monty deciphers the directions/coordinates as "14973 vex, 792 nef." (eps 10 and 11) When the party travels from the Ectic Station to Oda in episode 11, it seems to take almost no time at all, though it's surely getting glossed over a little for the sake of narration--so like, how long does it take to get from true vex to Oda, which is even further vim than where they started? I guess if you didn't need to travel super far either nox or nef that maybe it could go more quickly, but especially considering the implications that the Zephyr I is Old And Slow this seemed remarkably speedy.

The TEMPLE OF KATUR and the ZUMHADI BEACONS are also located within the Swirling Sea, but that's about all we get on them (ep14). Probably they're not super near where the party instigates their encounter with Fehujar, or everyone might have been more likely to just stumble upon things on their own.

The observatory at MOUNT CHARUK is nox of Zumhadi, which to me says we're going back to the continent Oda is on, but also BEYOND Oda to the vex. Meaning Charuk is NOT part of the Arenth Mountains but another, unnamed range. (ep 14)

ZUMHARA. Okay, so initially in episode 5, when we're first getting the tease of Zumhara existing, Brennan says it's "nox by noxvim" from Tabira/the Biazi, but he also says at that point that Zumhara is located at "true vim." This pretty much has to be a clerical error/a misspeak on his part, because in order for Mr. Big Britches to make the jump straight from atmosphere to atmosphere, to land back in Zumhara coming from Zern once the barrier is down, Zumhara would actually have to be at true vex, aka the point at which Zern and Zood are the nearest to each other. This also all tracks with Zumhara being a locale where it's cold enough to have snow on the ground, since true vex is super frosty like the north pole, etc. So, let's assume that Zumhara is actually nox by noxvex from Tabira City, and just keep the detail of "three or four days' travel." I think this also tracks with the Zumhadi beacons/the Temple of Katur having been floating over (and then fallen into) the Swirling Sea, since the Sea is nox of the Biazi, and the beacons were clearly a Zumharan project. Zumhara could possibly be located WITHIN the Arenth Mountains--the travel time from Tabira could be largely the vim-to-vex travel and less so on the nef-to-nox axis.

ZOOD ECOLOGY AND NATURE.

The party arrives in Zood on the 15th of Amravi. On Zood, four 'months' are observed, each roughly corresponding to one season of the year; unlike Earth (and therefore I assume Gath), Zood starts in Nuha (summer), then moves immediately into Tahal (winter), followed by the spring month which we never get the canon name for, and then Amravi (fall), back into Nuha again. SUMMER, WINTER, SPRING, FALL, IN THAT ORDER. This was a thing I was EXPLICITLY looking for that the fandom wiki did not have that lowkey inspired this entire project, rip. it's around 1:36:00 in episode 4.

Gravity is slightly, slightly weaker on Zood than it is on Gath. (ep4)

The MYCONIMUS MAGNAMENSA (or MENSAMAGNA; they're using both interchangeably for a hot minute, before ultimately settling on the former more consistently) is known as the "King of Mushrooms," and grows in patches in the Saltu. Inhaling the spores of the magnamensa in the presence of a member of a different species of animal causes the consciousnesses of the two animals to be swapped into one another's bodies. (Brennan specified that he viewed it as the MINDS swapping, specifically, such that even in another body you would be acting on the initiative count of your character, i.e. your mind.) Apocryphally, the magnamensa grows where there is "extreme spiritual potency," and is used as a morality tale of karmic retribution for those who do not ~respect and appreciate the majesty of nature. Scientifically, it's likely a defense mechanism, to confuse and disorient creatures that would trample or destroy the mushroom (ep5). On its own, the magnamensa can only swap two different species; to perform the transfer of the aging Imperasaurus into the youthful body of Courtney, the Legio Rex required the energies of Ramansu Power Station in some capacity, hence their attempts to trick the Wind Riders (and their thumbs) into helping them (APVII). Brennan also says you can MAYBE swap back into your original body if you really tried, but doesn't confirm 100% for sure.

The asteroids that are home to the Fehujar, sometimes referred to as the THOUSAND MOONS OF ZOOD, just barely skim the upper reaches of Zood's atmosphere, such that they leave trails of ice across the sky. (ep4)

The creature invented by Ally/Olethra is canonically named 'the sunscreen bear.' (APIII)

In the jungle where the party first lands we get mention of some fruits like "enormous green cashew-shaped melons" and "giant dark purple strawberries." I want to eat fruit so bad.

We also get a bunch of funky Odan plants in the Window of Wonder around 28:50 in episode 12. (I want that coffee pourover plant also…..) "The generosity of the plants of this place" helped Oda persevere and survive. In AP XVIII, Brennan remarks that "the abundance of resources gives the Zoodians a humanist mindset."

ZOOD TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE.

The crystal that allows for the instantaneous comprehension of languages occurs in nature, and is described as "gleaming white" (ep4). Written text in Zood is using a script/alphabet derived from that of the ancient Ilangan Empire; the translation technology works for spoken language, but does NOT extend to written text (ep6).

In episode 14 we get the first instance of the crystal frequency tech that can "read your likeness" and allow someone to communicate with you remotely. Van first does this by holding images of her family up to a humming obsidian disc. Brennan specifies that Van cannot see the people she's communicating with, but can hear their voices "in her mind." Judging by the way the Queen of Zern uses a similar technology to contact and mind-control Torse, possibly there is some crystalline, reflective element inside of Torse's machinery? I also wonder if something similar is going on with Goldbeard's homing beacon that consists of a 'small photograph of a clockwork face set into a crystal receptor' in episode 9. Could be a photo of someone on his crew, allowing them to 'see' whoever it is they're tracking.

The Odan Festival of Lomawan is celebrating the return of the sun lion deity to his realm in the sky now that we have passed fully seasonally into autumn/the harvest (ep12). If a year on Zood is still ~365 sun cycles, meaning each 'month' or season is still about the length of three Earth/Gath 'months,' it makes sense that this would happen about this far into Amravi, I guess. We hear about the sun lion as a representative of the Zood side/energies of the Prime Disruption in parallel to Straka embodying the Zern side/energies a few times, but we never get its proper name; is Lomawan also the name of the lion? or is it something else? This falls further into my "unexplored lore" section also.

The Legio Rex's attack on Tabira City, in their search for Ramansu, took place about 7 or 8 years ago in canon. In episode 4, the people in Tabira who seem to get the most angry about the name "Fehujar" are the folks in the big orange hazard-suit-looking outfits who are carting around a big load of coal; the people who seem to get the most angry about the name "Legio Rex" are dressed in sort of a more indigenous warrior style. I wonder if the former of these two groups are also Gathie transplants, since Fehujar's main thrust seems to be financially based, and native Zoodians don't seem to truck much with money.

Let us not forget that per episode 9, Goldbeard Explosio: was thrown/shot from his skyship by Daisuke, fell through the sky, struck a condor and landed on it, and was then flown by the condor through the effulgent biangle to ultimately arrive in Zood. THAT'S CANON BABY. His experience of the befrumplement of time is that he's been in Zood for about 30 years, which is a fair chunk of time, but not as long as the passage of true Gathie time. Goldbeard's Zoodian pirate ship is called the Gullfaxi, which is a reference to a mythical horse and means "golden mane." Gold beard and gold mane. thank you for this, brennan, you fucking nerd

NARRATIVELY RELEVANT ZOOD LORE AND STUFF, VAGUELY ORGANIZED BY TOPIC.

THE HOUSE OF FEHUJAR makes their home among the asteroids in Zood's upper atmosphere. They can trace their cultural origins to Gath, about 10 to 12 generations ago: an explorer from the Gathie nation of Houck, Rote Halvorson, was captaining a "lost voyage" that got sucked through the effulgent biangle. Without their thane-oriented socioeconomic structure, this smaller band of sailors and warriors had to fend for themselves in the wilds of Zood and didn't have anyone to reliably provide resources for them, thus resorting to raiding and pillaging. Enter another biangle'd Gathie, the diminutive banker Buxby Folger, who taught them all "the art of banking" and revolutionized their culture. This is a great illustration of the time befrumplement bringing disparate lifestyles together across time in Zood and changing the course of these people's historical trajectories. The House of Fehujar's business model is to descend onto small settlements in more remote areas of Zood, exploit them, and execute hostile takeovers to drive out all other bank franchises. Comfrey MacLeod became drastically indebted to Fehujar when she struck a financial deal with them, after attempting to seek aid from other major Zoodian powers like Oda or Zumhara but being unable to see eye-to-eye on the sort of transactional nature of her needs in a "non-money" society. Fehujar was under the impression that she would be mining and researching on their home asteroids, but when she funneled the funds into her own goals (the Ectic Research Station, Ramansu, etc.) they took this as a reneging/defaulting on their deal, and came to collect. Comfrey left Torse to defend the radio tower at Ramansu; he succeeded in protecting the broadcast, specifically, but despite the carnage Fehujar was not the loser in this fight. They won and reclaimed absolutely everything of value. The House of Fehujar operates about 4 dozen branch locations across the asteroids, as well as 'retail outlet locations' that consist of massive longblimps. Rolfgar Halvorson, Rote's direct descendent, identifies himself as "senior vice president, acquisitions" but is identified by Freyja as basically the president/head honcho. Though the Wind Riders defeat Rolfgar in combat, it's only by knocking him into the sea, not by killing him outright; in APX, Brennan allows that it's not impossible he survived his fall. (Pretty much all the Fehujar lore is in episodes 8 and 9.)

RAMANSU POWER STATION, also sometimes known (erroneously) as the TEMPLE OF RAMANSU, is an ancient Ilangan ruin located in the Saltu jungle nox of Tabira City. The power station was founded by someone known as "Ramansu the Builder," and is serviced by enormous stone constructs, who lay dormant for "centuries" before being reawakened by Comfrey when she began using the power station for her research, "two months one week three days 7 hours and 22 minutes" ago (ep7). The massive crystals that serve to generate the power can function by absorbing a variety of energies, not just lunar energy as is demonstrated in canon, based on their surrounding environment/just kind of what's going on (APVII). Ramansu, like many of Comfrey's other scattered research sites, has a Gathie stone tower nestled in the center of it (ep8). Much of the research being conducted at Ramansu seemed to have to do with Zern and Straka's role in the Prime Disruption, in sort of a direct contrast to the research/activity at the Ectic Station which was all about Tazgw'agwa and the obtenebrant biangle/The Barrier™ (ep11).

THE FLYING TEMPLE OF KATUR, which later became the SUNKEN Temple of Katur when it fell to the bottom of the Swirling Sea, aka "the True Temple" (again, as opposed to Ramansu, which is not in fact a temple), was created at the end of a long period of war between Zood and Zern, where a beast known as the Corvis Exitium nearly destroyed the city of Zumhara. After the temple was created, the attacks stopped (ep8). Due to time befrumplement, Comfrey MacLeod as well as many of Van's Chapman ancestors were instrumental in the constructing of the temple and its beacons. Katur served to maintain a barrier between the energies of Zood and Zern, including a physical barrier between their atmospheres, to keep the attacks of the Straka at bay; this was rooted in the theory that Straka would best be combated by another equally powerful great beast (jazzy tazzy). Ancient Ilangan texts speak of "beasts of the old worlds"--creatures from places other than Zood, that have left signs of their existence among the asteroids, etc--but after centuries, translation drift turned this into "elder beasts of the world," which became "spirits" or "gods," etc, etc, such that more recent texts cast such creatures as malevolent/destructive/eldritch whereas really it was just like. they are Aliens From Somewhere Else in a more morally neutral way lol. This line of research also touches on "hidden" ecosystems, and what sorts of creatures could possibly exist out there? what sorts of energies could they devour or consume, and what would repel them? and it's down this pathway that we determine that the ZOODIAN SUPERGOLD (Aurum Radiozoodus) will have a particularly potent effect on the Straka (ep11). The barrier established by the Zumhadi beacons also had an effect on transit through the effulgent biangle--pre-Katur, pre-the war between Zood and Zern, was when we saw a LOT more of the "vanishing cities" type stuff, like Calipan or the Legio Rex, etc., as opposed to the things that tend to drift through now which are just like individual crafts or people (ep12).

THE EYELESS HAND is a cult of misguided occultists who are/were attempting to bring down the barrier of Zumhadi and unleash Tazgw'agwa, aka their "nameless god," back unto Zood. The Eyeless Hand has hundreds of members throughout Zood, though many of the higher-ranking, longer-tenured more legitimate members of the Eyeless Hand are actually Gathie, while the newer Zoodian crop of recruits seem like more patsies who don't really know what they are doing, or are being led in circles and getting kind of pyramid schemed (ep12). While the Eyeless Hand want to unleash Tazgw'agwa for vague and stupid occult reasons of power? chaos?, that goal conveniently aligned with the Queen of Zern's very practical reasons for wanting to drop the barrier, so she funneled some resources and intel through to them to try to get them to accomplish this for her from the other side, ultimately bringing her into contact and cahoots with Kensington Cosgrove Morcedestershire. Some of this Zernian science was viewed as heretical even within the Eyeless Hand itself, and much of it addresses the elements of the obtenebrant biangle--mirrors, water, silver, reflections, etc (ep8). There's a reference in this text/lore drop to something called "eldritch cameras," and I wonder if that's referring to the same concept as the frequency-based remote-viewing tech through which Van communicates with her ancestors/Torse gets got by the Queen. These were brought up in conjunction with "dimming the beacons" and opening the portal to Tazgw'agwa, the ritual attempted in episode 13; in APXIII, Brennan identifies there were multiple components of this ritual going successfully, including Mordecestershire's interplanar knife, the active dimming of each of the 4 individual beacons, the slower working together vs. the swifter version where someone gets blood sacrificed, etc. Infamously, the players were also not "supposed" to win this fight; in APXX, Brennan explains that his plan was for the ritual to succeed and the barrier to come down IMMEDIATELY, which would make way for immediate attacks on Zood from Zern and the Queen, and in the chaos, Comfrey would come save them. But this never happened because everyone played D&D too good. LOL. (Other fun Eyeless Hand details include someone implying they'd part with "40,000 katar"/"my entire life savings" to benefit the Eyeless Hand (ep8)--katar sounds like some sort of currency, but we never encounter a single money-based commerce system in Zood, so I wonder if this is a Gathie currency but from somewhere outside the CIR that wouldn't use imperial marks; and then in APXII, Brennan also identifies two wandering, plainclothes members of the Eyeless Hand in the Oda panorama dome projection art, named Neil Primpton and Clucky Fowler.)

The PRIME DISRUPTION is the name Comfrey MacLeod has coined for the choice made by Zood and Zern to cordon off their individual 'energies' from one another rather than sharing them freely. This happened approximately 800 years ago in Zood's history from the point we're at in canon (ep14), which, if Ludmila has been here for about a thousand years slowly becoming what the Queen of Zern is today, makes total sense timeline-wise. The implementation of the Prime Disruption has been facilitated by a massive crystal engine underneath the city of Zumhara, "built like a massive mirror--in the center, a crystalline aperture, and everything else reflects energy invisibly and intangibly" (ep 18). The Wind Riders find this here and conclude that for it to be working, an identical, parallel device must exist on the surface of Zern; when Olethra destroys this "Heart of Zood" to try to undo the Prime Disruption, we're able to see that the Zernian version is located within Castle Odpadku (ep 19).

OTHER THAN THAT, HERE ARE SOME PLACES TO GO BACK AND LOOK AT BIG LORE DROPS: -The "when last we left off" at the beginning of episode 9, which is recapping episode 8, does a pretty solid job of summarizing all the MASSIVE amounts of lore/worldbuilding reveal that we get in Ramansu. -Episode 11, around 1:32:00, at the Ectic Research Station -Episode 12, circa the arrival of Diamante and Zaporano and then up through like 43:50, for stuff that's come through the effulgent biangle from Gath to Zood -Episode 12, around 1:34:00, in Mordecestershire's Odan apartment -Episode 14, around 41:00, at the Temple of Katur -Episode 14, around 1:59:00, for Onion St. Clay's explanation of befrumpled time + some Wind Rider lore

ZERN. The first mention of Zern and the calefactory biangle is, shocker, in the massive lore ocean of episode 8. We spend less time on Zern than we do our other places, and a lot of the 'lore' of Zern I feel like is the most concretely understood/relevant to the season as a whole, so I've got less here. but man I want this to be comprehensive, so here goes nothing.

the QUEEN OF ZERN aka Ludmila Ryczanek rose to power via the slimy manipulation of the CORRODI PRIMARCH. According to Torse, the Aganti Zernai can remember a time where they were not ruled by the Queen, but NOT a time without the Primarch, so these nasty freaks have been here forever (ep11). The Queen commands the naughtomata, which are the robot equivalent of how DnD 5e treats the concept of "undead" creatures. "She came to the waste and taught them the secret to carve out their hearts with salt, chalk and fire, to carve upon them the symbol of naught; machines with hearts and minds gave up their very souls - no heart to break, no mind to fret, no soul to shudder at the vile acts she put before them." (ep8). Most of these sad zombies are fully, completely dead, but some MAY be salvageable, a la our friend Sandy (APXVI). She also has "many profound observatories" and "secret ways of seeing, frequencies of crystal and steel"--she is basically always spying on Zood, waiting for an opening (ep11). At the height of the war between Zood and Zern, she attempted to lead an assault on Zood with the Straka, and the Zumhadi beacons/the Temple of Katur was implemented to try to stop the war by impeding travel between the two. So that's when the Queen gets in bed with the Eyeless Hand, working together (though with vastly different reasoning about it) toward their common goal. She gives them tons of technological insight into destroying Zoodian technology and bringing down the barrier (ep8). Some of this technological exchange also includes the sort of bottled canisters of Red Blood Mist that seem to be both powering the Corrodi Primarch and also somehow bolstering/juicing up Mordecestershire (ep19).

When the Wind Riders first land in Zern, they're in an area that Comfrey identifies as the "Plains of Rust" (ep15). It's got big rust spires jutting up from the landscape; by the time we're inside Mr. Big Britches, we can also see mountain ridges made of old oil tankers and carrier craft, filled out into topographical features by mounds of detritus; these mountains reach high enough in places to brush against the Tazgw'agwa barrier (ep17). There's also smog everywhere. In the "far distance" from where we're at is Castle Odpadku, which consists of a gigantic double-elbowed mechanical arm with a sort of taloned hand, in the palm of which rests the castle itself. "Much closer" than that is the Amphereon, a ridged/corroded cast iron dam that is now freestanding and dry in the wasteland. Like the Corrodi Primarch themselves, the Amphereon is eerily sinister in the way it is NOT jagged and scrappy like the rest of the landscape, but rather appears smooth as though it is trying to mimic organic life. The Amphereon is described as quite a large hall or structure with one face visible aboveground and further infrastructure below. If the Amphereon truly used to function as a dam, the river it lies on would lead from here toward the castle, and does do this when Van Chapman revitalizes it with her Create Water spell.

Canonically, Sandy explains, Zernian automata can fully have family units consisting of a mother, a father, and their child(ren); his parents "wanted to create something together," so his brass heart was created, and then they worked together to build him around it. This sits right on the line of "oh that's fun and whimsical in exactly the way this whole season has been" and "wow that seems remarkably Normative To Human Earth Culture in a way that almost feels wrong" for me, lol

There's a big spooky face in the battle set for episode 16, and when Emily asks after it in APXVI Brennan basically says that it's a Corrodi Primarch, or maybe used to be. scary!!!

There's a Zern lore dump courtesy of Sandy in episode 15 around 1:24:00, and another from Comfrey around 21:30 in episode 17. Again, a lot of this is redundant, since I think this is stuff we as fans have internalized more, and there's fewer minute details to keep track of that aren't intrinsically tied into everything that is actively going on.

AND THEN THERE'S SHAHAR!! This is where Tazgw'agwa is from, and likely is the "other side" of the obtenebrant biangle the same way the effulgent is linked to Zood and the calefactory is linked to Zern. Shahar seems to exist in a sort of legendary capacity within Zood the same way Zood is largely considered a legend to the laypeople of Gath; Comfrey's understanding of the legend is that while Gath has the "man in the moon," Zood has the "mirror in the moon," and when the moon is new, you can maaaybe see reflections of the "lost land of Shahar" in its darkened surface (ep18). If we get a season 2 we are GOING HERE, BAYBEE

TIMELINE OF EVENTS THAT TAKE PLACE IN REAL TIME DURING THE CANONICAL 20 EPISODES OF THE SHOW. This can also give us some loose geographical/travel time guidelines!

We begin at Gotch Manor with Longspot and Codswallop assigning repo-man missions to the seven Gotch sons. With Maxwell heading to Pilby, Dawderdale reports that she can get him there aboard the Zephyr "by tomorrow night."

We arrive in Gulch Canyon, pick up Olethra and then Pappy, and depart for Scrapsylvania all in the same day. (It's a "two hour drive by motor carriage" from Olethra's family home in the sticks to the proper skyport in Gulch Canyon.)

How long does it take to round up Van and Monty? a couple days? ish?

From the departure from Bellenuit to arriving at the South Pole, the Zephyr is in flight for ~12 hours.

The Effulgent Biangle will reappear in the skies above Eisengeist within about 4 days of their departure from Bellenuit; with the South Pole antics in between, we're cutting it close to get there in time.

Now we're in Zood!! We arrive in Zood on the 15th of Amravi (autumn).

Day 1 in Zood ends with the discovery of Haunch's murder in "late afternoon," and the departure from Tabira in pursuit of the Temple of Ramansu.

We come upon the Legio Rex in the wee hours of the morning circa 2 or 3 am.

The Massive Ramansu Lore Drop carries us through the night, and we are departing with Torse and looking at Zern above us in the pre-dawn/sunrise hours.

By the light of day, we're now flying over the Swirling Sea, searching for pirates. We find them, and have an hour or two of wacky pirate antics putting plans together.

Most of the rest of this day is spent flying to the ectic line, putting the stupid Monty Has To Pee plan in motion, and then getting into a big fight with Fehujar.

We take a long rest as we fly through the night to the Ectic Research Station.

Spending relatively little time at the station, we IMMEDIATELY take to the skies again to beeline to Oda to get a submersible. This is where things start to get muddy--it's unclear how much travel we're eliding over for the sake of story. But it doesn't feel like this takes very long, all things considered.

By the time Olethra and Monty are tracking Mordecestershire into the woods, it's later in the afternoon, and the sun is beginning to set (remember--it's autumn! we probably get long dusk hours).

The submersible engineered by Rufus Radish will hopefully be ready by "the end of the following day;" Monty sleeps the night at Mordecestershire's nasty old apartment in order to augment his Tracker's Quarry bonus.

When the submersible is ready, we immediately head out to Katur, take it down into the darkness, and end up engaging with the Eyeless Hand and defeating Mordecestershire. We bring the submersible back to the Zephyr and take off again, at which point we long rest to recover from the rough as fuck combat while we head to the mountains.

The Zephyr proceeds to spend "the better part of 2 or 3 days" looking for the Mount Charuk Observatory, at which point it is found by Comfrey, and the crews of the two Zephyrs reunite and merge.

After this point we're so deep in Plot Relevant Stuff that we stop getting concrete markers of the passage of time, I think. We have Zephyr shenanigans, get whisked to Zern, have Zern shenanigans, then yeet ourselves back to Zumhara, and within a day in Zumhara we've found The Engine and are bracing ourselves for a showdown when Straka appears. Extremely loosey goosey action film/DnD timeline stuff haha. But I felt like none of this was bad info to have kept track of!! so there it is.

GATH!: GEOGRAPHY, POLITICS, ASSORTED OTHER LORE.

The CONFEDERATED IMPERIAL REPUBLIC is a political power that controls seven of Gath's twenty-seven continents. They're a menacing imperial force, but not the sum total of what's going on. They don't, for example, have any jurisdiction in Bellenuit. (APII)

EISENGEIST seems to be a prominent seat of power for the CIR. Eisengeist has a queen, and in addition to the monarchy seems to have some sort of parliamentary or ministry/cabinet system, such that Mordecestershire is "The Queen's Minister of Deranged Science." He is also 'lord exchequer' of the CIR as a whole. The canonical demonym is "Eisengeistian," which I hate because it's a mouthful, and also because Eisengeist as a name is obviously derivative of German ("iron wind"!), and I feel like I want it to be "Eisengeister." But they did put it right there on the character art chyron, so. (Brennan also says "Bellenuitian," which is a little smoother but not my fave either.) The canonical currency of the CIR is "imperial marks," although at one point Longspot also uses the word "penny," but that's probably just Brennan slipping into common turns of phrase as he plays 8 million NPCs rapid-fire

UTMANY is mentioned more that once in the context of the CIR. This is fuzzy to me; in episode 2, Mordecestershire demands the Zephyr be "remanded to Utmany and the Gotch Family Manor at your nearest convenience," i.e. the Manor is in Utmany, which means Utmany is in Eisengeist, as a smaller sub-location/municipality, maybe? But in episode 3, a Murph history check reveals from Brennan that other Gotch brothers were traveling to "other locations" in the CIR--"A lot of them were in Utmany, some of them were in Gastonet." So either MacLeod had a lot of properties just right around the corner from the Manor, or maybe the Manor is kind of near the border, or idk. Utmany! (I still think this is a pun on "utmost." Not the utmost, just a good utmany.)

Likewise, GASTONET. Comes up more than once, seems to be part of the CIR. The Legio Rex originated in the continent of Gastonet pre-CIR (ep4). The name 'Gastonet' likely originates in the same root as the 'Gastonic' church, a major political power in the time period that Dames Diamante and Zaporano originated from (ep12), and all these factors combined together are saying to me that basically Gastonet is Gathie Italy the same way Eisengeist is Gathie Germany, and the Gastonic church is maybe kinda like the Holy Roman Empire.

PENWEIR is mentioned both in the context of the "Merry Lads of Penweir" (aka gathie robin hood) in ep 12 and in reference to Van and the Chapman ancestry stretching back (ep13 and maybe at least one other time idr). This, combined with how the language that the Gathie player characters are all canonically speaking is referred to as WEIRIAN (APIV), has me locking in Penweir as the Gathie England.

THE UPLANDS are referred to by Siobhan multiple times (but not anyone else, ever, afaik) as like, islands/landmasses floating in the sky? I feel like we NEVER explore this with any depth lmao. I don't know if that makes them one of the 27 continents proper, or maybe technically part of Penweir. But anyway the Rusty Nut is there. The Nut was Van's mum's establishment before Van took over, so it's in the family.

I believe Bellenuit is in the country/continent/etc. of NIX. (or NYX?)

Place names that sound like "HAWK" are mentioned A Lot. Ep 3 gives us "Hawkland" and "Hawksmouth" (or hawksmith?), spoken separately from one another; when Marya talks about the formation of Scrapsylvania, she mentions 'Hawk' as one of the warring countries that led to its existence. Then in episode 9's Fehujar lore drop, Brennan puts their origins in vanished biangle'd explorers from Houck, which he says with a vowel sound more like "How" with a k on it. I don't know if all the Hawk stuff is Houck. Hawk and Houck could be two different places entirely that just have incidentally very similar names. Or, it could be players reading something off a piece of paper vs Brennan having made all the lore up in his head.

At any rate, Hawk or Hawkland is an area mentioned as being between Eisengeist and Nix, which I can only assume means the other Scrapsylvanian origin country, LUIN (or LEWIN--the captions can't agree), is also nearby. PILBY is to the south, and the KABILIAN ISLES lie to the west (ep3).

The largest/most prominent island in the Kabilian Isles seems to be GRAND KABILIA, maybe sort of analogous to the 'big island' of Hawaii.

SCRAPSYLVANIA, and possibly also the Kabilians, are located within the CONCENTRIC SEA (ep1). On a planet with 27 whole-ass continents, I have to imagine there is comparatively less surface area covered by sea/ocean than on our irl planet earth.

NEW FRUMBIA is mentioned as the current-day location of where Zaporano and Diamante hail from, but they're from far enough back in history that it was effectively Old Frumbia at that point lol. "Old Frumbia" was split into a lot of looser, smaller kingdoms under the Gastonic church, and their queen, Aracamani, would've been a vassal queen in that context.

OTHER GATH MISCELLANY:

The Great Subterranean Congress taking place in Bellenuit. "Subterranean" implies to me that this is specifically a Nix/Bellenuit thing, but idk how much influence they have over everyone/everywhere else politically, if Monty is putting forth his Widow's Breath environmental concerns to this congress specifically. Maybe the 'subterranean' just refers to the fact that this is where they're meeting.

WIDOW'S BREATH is a form of industrial fuel that seems to have been pioneered by the Ministry of Deranged Science, as a revolutionary more "stable and sustainable" alternative to coal/steam-based power (ep2). The Queen's Smog is a toxic pollutant byproduct of the usage of Widow's Breath; those who have grown up deep in the heart of the CIR can become so overexposed to Queen's Smog that their lungs develop in such a way to render them incapable of breathing "normal"/unpolluted air, like the Brutes in Mordecestershire's service. (In his partnership with the Queen of Zern, it appears maybe Mordecestershire was extending the implementation of Widow's Breath to Zern, while she and the Corrodi Primarch were extending him the technology of the canisters of aerosolized blood(??) that were visibly augmenting his body in his first encounter with the Wind Riders.)

BELLENUIT'S security forces descended upon the Mordecestershire v Wind Rider encounter in blimps and uniforms of a "sensual" black velvet. let's not forget about this. Meanwhile, Mordecestershire set upon the party with an "Imperial Murgatroid Class Destroyer" ship + smaller 2- to 3-person ornithopter crafts referred to as "wasps."

In episode 14, Sylvio references a LaMontgommery novel by just the name/word "Duhindri"--based on the typical format of Monty's book titles, this sounds like it's also some place name a la Oh No Plateau etc.

The players clearly have a panorama-style map of Gath's continents that they're using for a point of reference to plan their travels in episode 3, but unlike the more granular Zoodian city panoramas we never get to see this with any detail, which drove me crazyyy. But if you wanna dig into that in ep 3 you can.

Besides the first 3 episodes, the only other real touchstones for Gathie lore/culture we're given are in episode 12, where Brennan gives us a big lore dump about more ancient/archaic Gathie history as it relates to things that vanished through the Effulgent Biangle, back before the barrier of Zumhadi was affecting interplanar transit and things as large as cities could still make their way from Gath to Zood. This is a good lore dump section to check (shortly after Diamante and Zaporano are introduced) if you want this kind of detail!

In episode 3, when the party arrives at the south pole research station, a record has been left playing a "holiday" tune, which Brennan sings very much in the idiom of a Christmas carol. The players (Murph I think) ask about how recently that holiday transpired, to try to track it against Comfrey's last known appearance, and those timelines exactly line up as "about 2 or 3 months ago." If we choose to interpret Gath as DIRECTLY analogous to Earth in this regard, and the big "winter holiday" was 2 or 3 months ago, this MAYBE puts the canonical action of the season at around late-late winter or very early spring in Gath. As a pisces, the idea that Cloudward Ho is taking place during pisces season might render me fully insufferable, sorry

Our level of audio technology seems to be radio transmissions and vinyl records/phonographs; as far as video, we get the prologue-y film newsreel in episode 1, which is described as black and white and 'extremely analog,' looking visually like a silent film but just also including sound. This seems kind of like a stretch just to make this work as a narrative device, haha, but either way, wacky steampunk technology, idk. Nicer, more detailed photography is still such that photographs have to be 'sat for' for several minutes due to the long exposure times required for cameras (ep4, the first time Ludmila's portrait comes up), which makes more sense to me.

Redraw of this Castle in the Sky still