schemer table enjoyer

This line, from Halandil to Vokjan, hurts me in a very specific way. Because it's not that they only have a chance now. It's not that Vokjan didn't have a chance before.

Vokjan did have a chance. His successors would prove this because they won. If they didn't have a chance before, no victory could have ever been possible. So, in truth, Vokjan did have a chance. His rebellion could have worked. There's no cosmological guarantee that it wouldn't have worked.

The difference between Hal (Thjazi) and Vokjan is that Vokjan fought his rebellion, without any proof that he could win. Vokjan fought knowing that there's never been a victory before. Vokjan fought because what other option was there? If all the choices he had were revolution or oblivion, then of course he was going to fight. It was never about fighting on the chance that he could win. It was always about fighting because the fight is the better option, which effectively makes it the only option.

Now, Hal (Thjazi) have that proof of concept. They stand on the shoulders of Shay and the Lloys who fought Azgra and won. Now, they know that gods can fall. Now, they know that there's a chance.

But they always had that. The Shapers could never take that from them. The Houses can certainly try. But nothing is ever a given. So the chances are low and never zero.

It strikes me that Hal says they have a chance now. But what if he was in Vokjan's shoes? What if they switched eras? Would he side with a revolutionary or would he be a priest if he didn't have that proof of a possible victory?

Yeah. Eventually he would become a rebel. If circumstances degrade enough that even certain doom would be better than prolonging life under brutal tyranny, people will fight.

But now, in theory, it shouldn't have to get that bad before people join the fight. They know better now. They know that there's a chance for victory. They know that regimes can fall. They have been forcefully made aware that no authority is absolute. So, in theory, knowing there is a chance empowers people long before they're that desperate.

Because maybe revolutions are a constant and inevitable component of society. Tyrants rise. Rebellion foments. On and on, the wheel turns. But the cycle is not a flat, 2D circle where you end at the beginning with no material change. The cycle is more like a helix, a 3D object that yes, goes down, but it can also go up. With each revolution, people can circle just a little higher than before, building on the victories made by their predecessors.

Because there's always a chance. There's been a chance before, there is a chance now, and there's going to be a chance in the future. Chance is a constant and irrevocable thing.

Critical Role | Campaign 4 | Ep 29

that's kinda the dynamic that shows chaotic and sassy side of orym most clearly

Primus Tachonis is an all-purpose personal tragedy creator sure to spur your character to adventure specifically so they can get his ass. Whether you need an old money asshole muscling in on an institution beloved to your PC or an evil sorcerer to slaughter their entire family Primus Tachonis has the magic and the social station to create whatever tragedy is required to serve your backstory.

Primus Tachonis is so versatile as a backstory tool he has professional D&D players raving:

Primus Tachonis killed my character's best friend and now she has to figure out who she is without him! -Laura Bailey I wrote a light backstory because I was still feeling out the setting and my dungeon master used Primus Tachonis to turn my brother into a statue! -Travis Willingham Primus Tachonis is trying to take over my character's magic school and endangering her students, and she will not have that! -Marisha Rey I had intended my character to have a tense but ultimately repairable relationship with his father, but then my DM used Primus Tachonis to rip his skull from his head. Now my character is on a quest to kill every member of Primus' noble house! -Matthew Mercer My character was a happy and established local playwright until Primus Tachonis had his little brother executed. Now he's taken up the sword again in his brother's stead! -Liam O'Brian I needed someone to murder my character's wife and daughter and my dungeon master suggested Primus Tachonis, and I couldn't be happier with the result! -Robbie Daymond Even works on members of his own family! -Alexander Ward

hello halaire nation

(song: Babydoll—Dominic Fike)

I have to preface by saying I hold absolutely no resentment towards marisha for her character choices — murray is without a doubt one of my favorite characters of the campaign. I think it makes total sense to be suspicious and fully think through what might happen at the theater, given that thousands of innocent people would be attending. But I also think the bird watching mission being short-staffed falls heavily on her shoulders, because she was the first person to bring up the possibility of something terrible happening on opening night, and she aggressively defended the idea from the very first moment it was challenged.

It’s that refusal to let go of her theory that really intrigues me, mostly because I’m not sure if it was intentional or not. Brennan dropped quite a few hints that the theater ritual was going to be a positive thing during the last few episodes, but it kinda seemed too little too late because the mindset that the theater was “ground zero” was deeply ingrained in the party by that point, which makes it hard to tell if murray’s insistence was purposeful.

Assuming it is intentional, I think that’s a really interesting character flaw for a character that hasn’t shown all that many glaring flaws as of yet. As an academic, she should know how important it is to consider all angles of a theory, especially angles that could disprove it. However, given the way she grew up and her role at the Penteveral, it stands to reason that murray has had a lot of her ideas shot down by muckety-mucks that didn’t really give a shit about the merits of what she was positing.

I would be reluctant to use fridging in this exact context, because this isn't some imaginary scenario to generate manpain for a white hero, this is a much more common experience of Native American and First Nation people, having their wives and daughters and sisters (in particular, but not exclusively) go missing. And never getting answers, never learning what happened, and not being believed that there's a problem in the first place.

This is like how being rescued from a tower by a prince is not particularly empowering or affirming to cis physically able straight thin perisex white women and girls, but can be for basically anybody else. Particularly black girls and women, who do not get a lot of cultural messages that treat them as people who are so valuable and precious, who may not have the strength to save themselves, or may wish that they didn't fucking have to save themselves (and everyone else) all the time.

White men have this story so often happen that we have a trope name specific to one specific and particularly egregious version of this, but you don't often see men who look like Robbie dealing with this type of story in fictional settings, even though it happens for men like Robbie in real life with horrifying frequency.