He has nothing to do except stare at the same four walls, chilled to the bone because it's always so fucking cold, with Holga as his only (if beloved) company, and the entire time he's wallowing in self-loathing and misery and grief, and his only thought is his daughter, his Kira, who he's left behind and he doesn't even know if she's okay, if Forge has kept his word of taking care of her--

So he thinks of her and composes a song that sums up all his love for her, his regret for leaving her behind, and his hope that she's alive and well without him.

Holga has never expressed anything more than a quiet hum of approval for his singing and composing; sure, he knows she enjoys when he sings, but he's never got any significant reaction from her before. The first time he sings the lullaby though, the first time he tries it out loud, he's so lost in the melody and the flow of it that he doesn't realize she's looking at him, tears streaming down her face silently, until he's finished. They don't speak of it; they both share the same pain and longing when it comes to their daughter.

And then the events of the movie happen, they save Neverwinter, they are acclaimed heroes but most importantly, their family is reunited.

Edgin will never again take for granted the time he has with his daughter. The first time she asks him to sing her to sleep he almost cries on the spot.

He does sing her to sleep. Common songs, sweet lullabies he's sang to her before, and slowly but surely her eyes start drifting and her eyelids become heavy.

When he's sure she's more than halfway asleep, only then does he sing her the lullaby he himself composed while imprisoned and thinking of her.

One day, he tells himself as he caresses her hair, spying Holga standing in the corner watching them with a sad smile on her face, one day he'll sing it to her while she's still awake.

(the song I thought about is "You Will Be Okay" from Helluva Boss. Imagining Edgin sing it to a sleepy Kira gave me a lot of feels and I will probably write a fic about this when I find the time and energy)

Combat: Holga’s fight scenes were a highlight of the film for me, displaying a huge amount of kinetic creativity as she pinballed between different combatants swapping out weapons, bouncing off the surrounding terrain . This is a far, far cry from how being a fighter plays out at the table, as most martial characters are focused into doing just one type of attack as good as they can because it’s their only reliable contribution to combat. Try to model Holga’s fights in game and you’d be caught in a boring slog of dealing 1d4+STR damage to a bunch of guards whittling away at their hitpoint pools, a far cry from the lighting quick flury of smashing, bashing, and flips that make her the film’s action setpiece.  

What d&d needs is a system for combat that exists alongside the traditional damage/HP paradigm: an additional layer of complexity for martial characters that encourages tactical thinking and lets those who do their damage up close feel just as cool and as clutch as casters. My mind’s already whirling thinking up something that revolves around stuns, suckerpunches, and positioning, so expect it later this week. 

Powercreep: This might be subjective but I find it fascinating that the official stats put out for the party has them hovering around level 16, a point in character progression  a)that  most characters never get to b) by which the game’s difficulty systems have begun to break down. I suspect this was done in order to keep their on-screen abilities in line with how they are in the base rules, but I can’t help but feel like its odd for the “idedalized” dnd experiance to be playing around with toys that most groups will never get their hands on. 

In my experience d&d is on a sliding scale of stakes V Shenanigans, with the exact ballance evolving over the course of a campaign:  Your group starts out as a bunch of dumbfucks and at some point while you’re making  making absolute fools out of yourselves you become a found family just in time for the consequences of your actions to circle back around and threaten the realm. First the characters start caring about eachother, then they care about the world, then they have to save that world. Level 16 is, for me, distinctly in “save the world” territory, despite the fact that the HaT crew are clearly still figuring out who they are and what they care about.  It makes me wish D&D was more free with its shenanigan enabling magic/items/class features at lower levels to help fuel these kinds of antics.  

Attunement: Perhaps the best “ oh I’m totally going to steal this” moment came from Simon’s attempt to attune to the helm of disjunction. Turning what was otherwise a rote game mechanic into an oppertunity for character growth was genius on behalf of the writers, though one I’d only really employ with items that were as necessary for my plots as the helm was for the heist. Just like Simon’s major flaw was self doubt, I could easily see delicious storytelling potential in throwing up other emotional hurdles depending on the situation: A hero’s sword refusing to attune to the haunted survivor until they’ve come to terms with what they’ve done, an otherwise altruistic character being forced to admit their sin and self interest by an evil-aligned artifact. 

my favorite thing in dnd is when a character activates their magic item and its just this really cool moment where you know shits gonna go down.