aspirant

"Don't let him get into your head. He only tells the truth. It's just rotting."

aeor genuinely became a stronghold for mortals at some point during the calamity. very possible! if the calamity started making other flying cities drop like flies, they mightve realized that the rivalries they had going with other cities were less important than getting as many mortals as they can to team up against the gods

aeor wanted bodies for experimentation. also very possible. could explain why aeor was so successful in testing dangerous tech, they had a lot of desperate people they could exploit

The Raven Queen that ascended was an arcane master and follower of her predecessor, implied to live in Avalir. We don't have a confirmed class for the Matron's og self, but given she taught Patia I'd bet Wizard... which is a very different way of accessing power than a Warlock. And if she was trusted to teach the Por'co grandchild, presumably this woman was highly regarded indeed.

As much as Emhira is coming to Downfall with a unique perspective among the gods (as touched on in Cooldown, being a mortal who usurped a god AND death / fate being her domains), her perspective as a mortal was an outlier among mortals even before she ascended. Not just that she was the only one to pull off this ritual successfully, but in being in the upper class of a mageocracy in one of the most powerful flying cities to exist.

And now she has been living on the ground, under the supervision of her Champion, for decades. Her Champion who stepped onto Avalir with muddy boots and ranger leathers.

Is Emhira a likeness to the Matron's first body? Was she born to be herself again, only to be molded by cataclysm and suffering into a far more ragged, worn woman than she was before? Hell; was that mage in Avalir all that familiar with death at all, with magic always so close at hand? How has it been to see death and death and death around her, out of her control?

How does it feel, to have a name again for the first time in two hundred years? To not be a porcelain mask but a person?

Given this war between gods is an extinction level event (the ash covering the sun reminds me of thd K-PG extinction event, and also how are y'all growing apples??), I wonder if Emhira is just as changed as Asha is. Life is choked and slaughtered and dying, they are both sides to that coin. How frayed are the strands of fate?

His Asmodeus in Calamity was absolute perfection, and the confrontation with Zerxus remains one of my favourite CR scenes ever.

Now with Downfall, BLM keeps on building Asmodeus and showing more sides of him and I'm eating it all up:

- We have confirmation that, exactly as Zerxus claimed, he was not always as he is now. He actually saved the Gods during the escape!

- Him and Serenrae had... something going on, and are now giving mad divorced energy

- His avatar is the oldest, so either he was the first to volunteer to go squash aeorians, or he had some other nefarious plot going on

- He is posing as a priest of PELOR, because his pettiness is eternal

- "Hello, family!" This bitch is LIVING for the drama

Four dieties were killed in the opening Downfall sequence (Edun, Aily, Nahala, and Qsar). Now, there are four aspects of dunamis we see exhibited in Ashton's rage (Gravity, Space, Time, and Luck). Of the four, we receive two descriptions. Edun is "sparkling kaleidoscopic multicolored lights" and Aily who "moves as shifting color leaving imprints behind."

Reminiscint of Ashton's Time rage after images, no? And Luck rages are when his head flashes with rainbow sparks. Now I think a black and white orb of light among these balls of color would have rated a mention, suggesting our friend left behind was Gravity (which. well. makes sense.) and the one who turned back Space.

I posit that Edun was the ancient god focused on the concept of Luck (both good and bad), Aily on the concept of Time, Nahala on Space, and Qsar (reminding me of quasars which contain massive black holes) on Gravity.

We have yet to see the two dieties consumed by Predathos after their arrival in Exandria and the creation of Ruidus.

What this means for the Luxon or dunamis I have no idea! But uhh...