i'm finally getting caught up on cr4 e31 and man. the clear influences of the player's real life culture in their characters (and in the worldbuilding in brennan's case) is amazing and adds such a richness. like thaisha is so clearly influenced by like. black american folk culture Especially with the orcish revolutionaries. idk if liam is irish but he's at least running with a lot of the irish american working class stuff brennan injected into the world in terms of the hal and the culture of the round. and azune's whole bit about not having anyone to speak his native language to and his disconnect to his own identity (diaspora narrative). i Love when real world cultures are reflected in fiction it's so good.
#and what Robbie is doing with Katt seems to be very much exploring the unchecked violence against native women and children in the USA
oh fuck you're right. you're totally right that's exactly the allegory.
#aabria has noted some direct links to african american culture - with thaisha's tattoos having gullah geechee and low country roots#(a tattoo called indigo fingers/elukami - intended to honor slaves on indigo plantations who developed extremity staining from the dye)#(and yes - lol as others have noted - liam is very irish - as is brennan and there is a lot of that influence there + with the fairies!)#something i've noticed about laura coming from a biracial background as well (with her being half white and half filipino)#is that same sort of diaspora narrative - of being away or disconnected from one half of yourself you don't know enough about#(which she's arguably done with all of her main CR characters to some extent) (with vex and jester being biracial as well!)#(with thimble - having no one else like her around her - with her having grown much more accustomed to city life with big folk)#(and potentially sometimes struggling to get along with or understand other fairies)#also! robbie not only addressing MMIW - but indigenous substance abuse issues + utilizing an atlatl as a weapon#(and azune bringing in mesoamerican quetzalcoatl mythology with the dragon - calling it coatl (iirc?) in his native tongue)#(which is the actual nahuatl word for 'serpent/snake') (or it was something similar to 'coatl' and was intended to be that)#it's so cool what a collaboration of cultures can do in storytelling and i love it so much#(sorry this got so long i think about it a lot ;o;)#critical role
sorry for copy pasting everyone's tags but i had no idea laura was biracial and that really contextualizes a lot about thimble and her narrative! and i saw aabria mention the tattoos but i forgot about kattigan's weapon and i didn't pick up on the ties to irl mesoamerican folklore. this campaign is fucking amazing and i love seeing all the little details that come from enriching the ttrpg space with real cultures (especially non white ones). it really heightens the storytelling.
