Tell all the truth but tell it slant —

In order my inspirations were things I’ve seen that Catholics, Buddhists, Jews, Scientologists, and many traditional local religions do that are referenced in research that I’ve done or people who practice those religions in the modern day have actually told me about something that they or their families do personally.

In fact I have Hmong friends whose families still do animal sacrifice for their own personal traditions. They sacrifice chickens, spill the blood in a specific way, and eat the animal afterwards.

i think its really interesting that hannan and thaisha are, despite obviously both being druids and having the same world-goal, pretty much entirely narrative opposite.

(this is mostly rambling, minor spoilers under the cut)

(to the best of my lore knowledge, with the understanding that these things do not exist solely in 2d space, so the places i've put them are where was convenient for the connections, not necessarily what actually neighbors what)

so this is what the world looked like for the past few millenia of shaper rule. dead souls end up in the tenebral reaches (the deep dark woods), to be guided on to their respective afterlife from there. some gods had celestial psychopomps, like olbalad, to guide the souls they deemed as theirs. house tachonis did that job for tansul, because their sorcery draws power specifically from that shadow realm, they know it intimately. azgra had a crueler method, and cursed the souls of all dead orcs to follow a river of his own blood directly from araman, through the underworld, and into the dying fields

and lurking underneath it all, the oldest path, the first one ever made. the druids can guide souls themselves, back to this plane in a new form, but they were almost wiped out during the shapers' time, forced to continue their work in secret if they did so at all

sylandri wasn't allowed to keep the elves as immortal as she wanted them, but she wanted them always in the light, to never know the world of shadow. so the stone of nightsong was eventually created, to open a bridge between araman and faerie, such that any mortal injury they did befall, it would carry their souls to faerie directly

with the shapers gone after the war, their psychopomps mostly went with them. the afterlives are theorised to still exist, but with the paths closed, no one could prove it. gavzidra's drying up with no recourse for the souls trapped in it. and with nowhere to go, the dead just pour into that shadow space that can't hope to contain them, swelling precariously as it tries. the old path is more vital than ever now, but it's like trying to drain a bucket of water through a pinhole, there just isn't enough time or druids to make a real dent

and then 8 years ago. the chaotic expanse of necromantic energy bursts directly into faerie and almost kills everyone in it. faerie has no choice but to seal themselves off or die, leaving the golden orchard behind as the last bit of true faerie left in this world

and to the dire state of the present day, prior to opening night at the theatre. the underworld has gotten so big it's started creating only theorised geography, like the sea of lachris. elf souls and orc souls and everyone else who died after the shapers war are lost here somewhere. tachonis are doing whatever the fuck they like with an ever expanding portion of the universe/its people that they see as rightfully theirs

but then thjazi's ritual. blood from gavzidra, made into paint. painted on the walls of an old temple to azgra, reforged into a place of joy and hope for all orc people. hal and shadia and the rest of the ko'therai cast telling a story that reaches across planes, touching the actual souls who lived the story, souls trapped in the dying fields, freed through the repurposing of the same river that brought them there. anchored to this theatre, to the pariah blades in shadia's hands, unaware she holds the legacy of her entire people now. the bridge is open, for thaisha, who's spent her life training to guide lost souls, to show them where to go

the problem: one bridge alone can't keep its form, there's pressure acting on it from all sides, it's shaking and swelling like the underworld has been for 70 years. it needed stability. needed something whose purpose has always been to open a bridge

I have seconded Otto's meeting

Because I have questions such as

Where is my son

Oh you have a letter from him, Otto? probably House Royce forged it.

FYM Amariya Cormoray is missing?

uh yes this is a House Tachonis ring, but

Oh she's here nvm

Yes, the letter was forged

uh maybe there was an assassination attempt?

a gnome did it

oh like YOU haven't considered removing House Royce because their magic was weak and also Aranessa married Thjazi Fang. Don't pretend like we haven't discussed it.

Might I remind you I'm so powerful and goth

like you really believe COMMONERS?

...yes, lord einfasen

fine. hit me with it Yanessa.

I can't summon a Deva Vindicta anymore, so, you're welcome.

Prior to the fall of Tansul we were all vassals to House Obridai under the empire

Without empire to unite us, we often argue

I was going to give you all a piece of Telmora and take the golden orchard for myself

the angel was just to make sure i won.

not like you aren't trying to win in fucked up ways either, looking for giants and magic rocks and engaging in demonic biological warfare or whatever the fuck you do

so I lied. I cheated. I bribed men to cover the crimes of other men. I am an accessory to fratricide. but the most damning thing of all...I'm really fucking good at it. get on my level.

like you haven't tried to be emperor

which, by the way, is necessary, because if we DON'T work together, the COMMONERS win.

if you win? I will serve you. I prommy. btw Thjazi tried to start another rebellion

yeah he was bait for Aranessa. I was going to kill her and then make Occtis into the angel because the candle specifically needs noble blood, which, uh, don't worry about it. don't worry about House Davinos

I have to confess that when campaign 4 was first announced, I was a bit skeptical of the idea of having so many PCs and three disparate tables with set "labels". I worried that the tables would be too divorced from each other, and I (wrongfully) assumed that most of the characters would be unconnected to the others. I also thought the fact that each table had a different 'focus' had the potential to be jarring.

Having now seen two arcs and at least one full episode at each table, I’m happy to say that my misgivings were quite off the mark. It’s clear that when CR decided to do something different for this campaign, they decided to push the medium of actual play to the limit. In doing so, they’ve created something that caters to many different types of storytelling all at once, an epic with a cast of characters more like that of a sprawling fantasy novel than your average ttrpg. It’s the kind of thing that would be SO difficult to pull off with a home game, but because of the fact that it’s filmed, they’re able to use the fact that it’s a theatrical production as a way to leverage the medium.

One of the things that has struck me is how each table has been rooted in a different genre. The Soldiers’ table felt the most like straightforward dnd — they had a revenge quest and a goal to find Teor’s brother, they left and went on an adventure, they met some allies and did some fighting and ultimately concluded with Casimir dead and Cyd acquired. The Seekers, meanwhile, were on the run from the moment they started, and because they kept leaping out of the frying pan into the fire (all the way up until they reached the Barrowguard), their sessions felt like nonstop action and suspense. The ultimate conclusion at Tannesar shifted somewhat back into a more standard dnd format, but the conversation with Pascard Velmonte also hammered home that this is something different (specifically, how it didn’t follow the standard rules for Speak With Dead and instead used the casting of the spell as a way to further the story).

I’ve just finished episode 19 with the Schemers, and they’re in a THIRD story that’s essentially a political thriller. I don’t think I’ve ever watched an actual play where half of the episode was taken up by scenes with single characters and npcs, but this was so important to how their plans are being set up. It sounds like it’s going to switch to being more collaborative in future episodes, but I still was struck by how different it felt.

The point I’m making here is not “dnd can’t be all of these things”, because part of the joy of ttrpgs is that they CAN be all of these things. The point is that actual play shows, until now, have predominantly been structured to showcase a campaign the way that a home game would, and now we have this new format that plays dnd using blocks of improv to form the equivalent of a tv show or movie. We can move from group to group, we can change the tone up, we can switch characters in and out — and it’s extremely cool and dynamic.

Critical Role has stopped trying to be a home game with additional viewers, and it’s a logical next step to push that even further after ten years. It’s revolutionizing the concept of what actual play can be, at least for me (and let me know if anyone else has done this in a similar format before them, because I’d love to check it out!) Campaign 4 spotlights the versatility of using ttrpgs and improv to build coherent, long-form epic stories with larger casts, and I imagine it’s quite a feat to pull it off with such skill. This feels like it might herald a new shift in the genre, and I’m excited to see how this influence carries over into other actual play shows.

if a river of blood can become paint and the pariah blades can become ploughshares and the hallowed round can become a theatre, then bolaire can so too be changed. in fact, he already has been, just like when thaisha attempted to reshape the pariah blades and found shadia had already done it unknowingly.