Revolutionary

[ID: A digital drawing of Occtis Tachonis and Thimble from Critical Role. Occtis is cupping his hands for Thimble to sit in and holding her up next to his face. She's hugging his cheek and they're both smiling. End description.]

lady Aranessa Royce and Occtis Tachonis from Wondercon 2026.

absolutely obsessed with this photo so I figured I'd put it here too. I can't wait to get more from this shoot back. Anya's Occtis is my favorite part of all of this, we'd been planning to shoot together for MONTHS so I'm so pleased it came out well.

for context this is a candid shot. I still haven't even seen the full shoot photos.

I have been operating under the assumption that these are the only noble sorcerous houses, especially because of the theories surrounding schools of magic. This means that the three rebel houses were the only rebel houses (ie, no rebel houses were believed fully destroyed in the Shapers' War), and specifically were on a slightly lower level than all five other houses (ie, there's Obridai at the top; Halovar, Tachonis, Kalystra, and Memnari at the second level; and then Cormoray, Einfasen, and Royce).

We know the power sources for Cormoray, Einfasen, and Royce (djinn, giants, and fae, respectively). Einfasen is explicitly stated to pre-date the Obridimian Empire and I suspect that the others do as well. I also suspect, given the knowledge of the Sea of Lachris, that House Tachonis also pre-dated Obridimia and simply joined its service as psychopomps; though it is possible that they were granted this connection by Tansul and merely knew of the Sea of Lachris because they have an inherent connection to the Tenebral Reaches. Also of note is that their connection seems to be specifically to the Tenebral Reaches, not to other realms of death, which is why they have grown in power since the Shapers' afterlives fell, and why they are trying to shut down all other options.

House Halovar's original power source is not clear. However, we know that Wick's power derives from his celestial ancestry, as a Clockwork Soul sorcerer. I've said elsewhere I suspect they were probably Divine Soul, and their deals with demons do not tie back into their sorcery, but this is not confirmed.

We know House Kalystra seems to have had stone-related abilities. One possibility for that is they had a connection to the dao as Cormoray did to the djinn (though, to be fair, Cormoray seems to also have efreet-related abilities and sometimes people refer to all the genies as djinn; I believe in the original Islamic folklore ifrit are demonic but grouped with jinn in some ways, so like. it's complicated). As Cormoray is looking into their quarries I suspect they were likely closely related.

"Am I too old to see the fairies dance?

I cannot find them anymore,"

[ID: A digital drawing of Halandil Fang holding up the mask that is Bolaire Lathalia from Critical Role. Hal's pose with the mask is based on the "Alas, poor Yorick" scene from Hamlet. End description.]

A kofi doodle for @samuraiko!