There is much mystery betwixt these gnarled vines.

Some RPG players (myself included) like to worldbuild as part of their character creation. It’s not just coming up with a family and dynamics to flesh out your backstory; it’s coming up with a hometown and its history within the larger region and why your character developed certain opinions about a whole catalogue of issues. It’s making up truths about the world and giving it to the DM to do with as they please.

This is not something all DMs look upon favorably. Some view this sort of thing as giving the DM homework in addition to the work they already undertook for planning a campaign. DM’s who prefer module or self-contained adventures tend to dislike it the most because it’s just not the type of game they signed up for.

Matt is also a world builder, so it’s no surprise that he enjoys Taliesin’s work and happily incorporated into Exandria. They’re also very close friends, so it wouldn’t be shocking if their preferences aligned for a good chunk of it.

Whitestone was Taliesin’s creation, but he had no idea how or if Matt was going to incorporate it into Campaign 1. Percy’s backstory was that he had fled the city because of the Briarwoods, and for all he knew, they intended to slaughter everyone. It could have been an abandoned ruin or infested with undead. The obvious answer to the question “Why didn’t Percy ever go back?” is that he had no reason to expect to find something there.

Taliesin played any details he knew very close to the vest. Percy barely mentioned anything about his backstory before the Briarwoods arrived in Emon. The players and audience had intuited some details, but nowhere near the scope of the city that Taliesin had designed. All that information served solely to inform Percy’s opinions as the group traveled. Unlike another player in C1, there was no main character syndrome here. Percy’s backstory kicked off when Matt decided it would, and Taliesin was never overeager to push the other players into it.

And that’s the potential trap with this style of gameplay. It’s easy, even tempting, to make everything about that intricate backstory. After all, there’s so much potential there, and you know it’s there and that you’ll like it because you put in all that work to add it. The DM approved it. The excitement can build into a frenzy, because after all, this is part of the fun!

But this style of gameplay requires one overarching commitment to avoid that problem: If a detail didn’t make it into the game, it’s because it wasn’t useful, so it’s good that it all worked out. Excitement makes it difficult to gauge whether or not a detail would actually add something to a given moment or if it’s being shoehorned in. You need to chill. Worldbuilding players must rely on the DM and the other players to give cues about where they want the story to go, and the worldbuilding players bear the responsibility of providing exposition and chasing leads to match those cues. It’s not unlike acting as a vice DM when the campaign veers into their territory.

Taliesin has fully adopted that attitude. He likes using his character to help other players’ arcs along. Sometimes this happens through advice and cheerleading, but it also includes conflict.

Percy was the reason that Vox Machina went to Whitestone, but he wasn’t leading the adventure. Taliesin had given Percy flaws and sufficient self-awareness that the group could (a) readily recognize that Percy could not be trusted to use his best judgment throughout this arc, yet (b) still rely on him to work toward common goals. His trauma and instability also provided a reasonable explanation why Percy couldn’t just hand them a foolproof infiltration plan, maps, and a list of allies. It kept Percy’s capabilities and knowledge within the same range as the other players in a way that didn’t break immersion, but also helped guide the others in a city Taliesin had made from scratch. That remained true for the entire mission, and it’s why we can call those episodes the Briarwoods Arc, not the Percy Arc. However, there’s enormous swaths of the city that were never explored or even mentioned, and it’s because it didn’t matter to the story. We got the pieces that were useful.

It’s tempting to conclude that Taliesin should have known what pieces weren’t going to be useful, but it’s flat out wrong. Matt took the pieces Taliesin had made and used what he did. In the same way that the audience couldn’t know what Matt was planning, Taliesin didn’t either—and that’s also part of the fun. Taliesin got to build something and still be surprised by how it all went down.

Taliesin’s player choices weren’t all that different when Ashton guided Bell’s Hells through Bassuras in C3. We got to see him reconnect with people from his past, but the Hells were tracking leads for other issues that weren’t directly related to Ashton. However, Bassuras mattered to the moon plot because of the significant NPCs based in that location, and they were scattered among different factions and neighborhoods. The result was that we didn’t get to see as much of it as we liked because Ashton’s backstory and city weren’t all that relevant to the Ruidus storyline. (We could go deeper into that topic, but that’s a separate issue from how worldbuilding players engage with a D&D campaign.)

Molly was almost an exception. While it is true that Molly didn’t know anything prior to waking up in a grave and several mysterious aspects of his body, Taliesin still created an entire circus, including a troupe of characters, to fill those 2 years of memory. Molly acted as a guide for the Nein’s very first arc, not as a location, but for checking with witnesses (all carnival folk that Taliesin had made) and ruling out the circus weirdness to isolate the actual clues. Molly and Fjord were the only members with prior experience working in a larger traveling team, so it’s not a shock that they had so many moments in the early campaign keeping other members in check (especially Caleb) when selfish preferences could undermine the group. Molly also tended to focus on ensuring the Nein were well supplied and prepared for land travel in a cold climate. None of those decisions were to make a scene about Molly; it was a reflection of Taliesin’s preference to ground his PCs in the world and to reinforce reasons to stick with a group when they could just as easily break apart.

Caduceus came with just as much worldbuilding as the rest, but look the longest for any of them to be raised in the campaign. Taliesin created the Blooming Grove, the story of three devout families serving four gods, some history of the Savalirwood, and two additional holy sites. Caduceus wasn’t coy about anything; discussions of faith, the gods, power, goals, trust, honesty, and family all came up as the other PC arcs veered in those directions. Taliesin also had the benefit of knowing the other PCs’ personalities before making Caduceus, so he was able to build a personality that would congeal well in the group and provide a fresh perspective for the other players to bounce ideas off of.

Which brings us to the current campaign and Bolaire. The difference in C4 from the previous characters is that Bolaire has an extremely obvious reason to keep his backstory a secret: he is a sentient magic item that killed a god. Of course he’d want to keep that under wraps for as long as he can from as many people as he can. Sure, he’ll probably build trust with certain people on it and share it with the entire ensemble eventually, but it’s going to take time with every single character.

There is no doubt in my mind that Taliesin and Brennan knew that would cause some friction between the PC’s inclinations and their ability to move the game/story plot forward. I’m not going to explain this one because it’s not worth entertaining other possibilities. They knew it and both decided to go forward with this backstory anyway. In addition, Brennan is also a world builder, and while this might be the largest he’s had to construct, he has plenty of experience and has some overlapping interests with Taliesin.

The puzzle then is how the necessary aspects of their worldbuilding can eventually come to light when Taliesin is now playing a character with the opposite instincts of his usual type. Instead of a player keeping his excitement in check to avoid hijacking the game, Taliesin has to use new strategies.

It helps that Bolaire isn’t the only one designed this way: Hal and Murray had very understandable reasons to resist the call of destiny, and Wick was perfectly contented in his cult without curiosity to question it. Those three needed to be shaken out of complacency. Bolaire wishing to remain a mystery so that he can keep his position as the curator of a museum wing of artifacts like himself tracks well with everyone else who has roots in Dol-Makjar. That creates a sense of thematic cohesion even with the stark differences owing to Bolaire’s unique status as a magical item instead of a living person.

One of the themes that keeps arising in the story so far is the need for these characters to choose between multiple priorities, and one of their priorities not only permits the status quo but reinforces it. Hal eventually realizes that bowing to authority so that he could be allowed to make art is simply not worth the cost. Murray realizes that she actually can’t protect students at the Penteveral, and she must instead stand with them to fight where they can. Wick decides that he’ll undermine his family’s cult even with how uncomfortable and unpopular he’ll be because he cares more about people than comfort.

Bolaire was a tougher nut to crack because he cares about very little. His primary interest in the initial arcs was to support his friend Hal, and to keep those who know his secret (Murray and Azune) close. None of those three have an interest in upending Bolaire’s secrecy or his life, so he is understandably not motivated to change course. While he demonstrated some interest in the Coffin of Olbalad (especially after seeing Termina pop out and back into it) and in books that may have info on the other Panto, there’s no rush. He’s immortal. It took a god to supposedly destroy even one of his siblings, and after seeing Termina take Amariya, well, maybe even that isn’t enough to do it. He and his siblings have forever to figure each other out. So Bolaire choosing to spend his time focusing on the other Schemers’ plots makes sense.

The only two tasks Bolaire cannot turn away from are to kill gods and to love his siblings. Thus, Brennan’s perfect solution was for Termina, Bolaire’s sister, to come along—now possessing the body of the heir to House Cormoray, which tried to take over his museum—and latch onto the idea that they should make gods to kill. Bolaire now has a conflicting priority that is likely push him out of his secrecy.

Perhaps all this could have happened sooner, but neither Brennan nor Taliesin thought it would serve the story to do that. If Brennan thought it was important to get to this step during the overture, he could have had Termina attempt to take Thaisha’s body and fail (possibly making it a cinematic or challenge like Occtis’s resurrection in episode 4), or do the same with Murray when she and Bolaire tested the open box later. If Brennan thought it was important for the Schemers’ arc, he could have had Termina and Bolaire talk when she first popped out of the box and onto Amariya Cormoray. Termina could have puppeted Amariya out of the museum, maybe with some ambiguous idea whether she would be an ally or enemy; how could either Hal or Bolaire have stopped her? Instead, Brennan decided that it was too early in each scene for even minimal exposition, and Taliesin rightfully took his cues not to fret much about this lead. The reason Amariya and Termina were part of that museum scene at all were to (1) emphasize the danger and time pressure of the Schemers’ stealing the Pariah Blades out from under the Cormorays, and (2) indicate that additional plotlines are incoming.

It could very well be that I am putting too much faith in Brennan and Taliesin with respect to the Panto plot, but I really don’t see any flags that make me think they’re fumbling it. As Brennan noted, Amariya alone was a double-digit challenge rating sorcerer on par with a dragon. Adding Termina to the mix is a billboard-sized neon sign that this is a plot far beyond the scope of the PCs’ current levels. Termina’s instability and immediate misunderstanding of Bolaire’s intentions (without a roll) also demonstrates that this isn’t a problem that can be Schemed into safer thresholds. Seeding late-game plots now is a great way to maintain audience intrigue and excitement, and it’s a strong indication to all the players (not just Taliesin) that they could easily stumble into a TPK if they head toward it unprepared. I don’t have any reason to think Brennan is going to use Termina or Amariya to steamroll the PCs on their own prerogative; Amariya probably doesn’t care about the swords now that she has Termina. Thus, there still isn’t time pressure, but there’s no ignoring that a nuke is now sauntering through the city. This gradual build up tracks logically for the plot and cues everyone that Bolaire now has reason to be more open with the others.