#exandria

Hello critters!

As many of you will know by now, Critical Role announced that the upcoming Campaign 4 will not take place in Exandria, but a brand new world: Aramán! In light of this news, the Critical Role wrangling team has decided to update the existing fandom canonical tag in order to help both critter veterans and newcomers alike in finding and filtering for the works they want to see.

Therefore, the existing fandom tag, Critical Role (Web Series), has been renamed to Critical Role: Exandria (Web Series) in order to distinguish the campaigns, one-shots and mini-series set in Exandria. A new fandom, Critical Role: Aramán (Web Series) has been canonised separately to better help keep the works for this brand new world separate from the existing Exandria fandom and lore.

In summary, these are the new fandom tags going forward:

Critical Role: Exandria (Web Series) will refer to any actual play content set in Exandria, such as Campaigns 1, 2, and 3, as well as miniseries like Exandria Unlimited and Wildemount Wildlings and one-shots like The Screw Job, The Mighty Nein Reunited, Tag Team at the Teeth, etc.

Critical Role: Aramán (Web Series) will refer to the upcoming Campaign 4 and any related one-shots or miniseries aired in conjunction with the new campaign.

We hope this update will be helpful for filterability going forward. If you’d like more information about this update and our reasoning behind it, read on after the cut! We wish you all happy browsing and… is it Thursday yet?

Hi again everyone! It's been another year, and with Campaign 4 taking us to another world, I thought it was time to release another update to my definitive map of Exandria!

Linked below is a download file, which includes both high and standard resolution .pngs and well as the low res .jpeg that you see in this post. Also includes the Wonderdraft map file, for anyone who wants to take this map and modify it for themselves!

High-resolution map images and Wonderdraft file download:

Pay What You Want Ko-fi link [HERE]

Only a few changes have been made to my map in the last year, summarized below:

Added Seedfeld from The Re-Slayer's Take to Demithore Valley.

Added Port Callivon and Gremidash mentioned by Raishan in The Legend of Vox Machina to Mornset Countryside.

Added Torm's Hill and Snowgrave pass from ExU: Divergence to Mornset Countryside; added unofficial roads connecting Torm's Hill to Bronbog.

Added Seagate from ExU: Divergence to Othanzia.

Added village of Lichenvel from Vox Machina: Stories Untold to Menagerie Coast

Added village of Vashlow mentioned by K'ryyn in Critical Role Campaign 1 to Menagerie Coast

Added island of Evaterena and the village of Yutazo from Tag Team at the Teeth to the Shattered Teeth.

Some people appear to be coming at the typhros reveal from the angle of “Matt meant that in C2 Deirta 100% had typhros to this degree and from his first appearance to Jester and Fjord’s wedding Essek has had the exact same motivations as he does in the show, but if you look at this interview Matt did during the campaign he says something else,” and so they arrive at “he’s lying to retroactively justify this change that I don’t like.” A much more likely explanation if you’re approaching the situation in good faith is that Deirta’s typhros was part of his original concept for Essek, and informed Essek’s early motivations, but Matt moved away from it later or decided to focus on other things by the time he gave the interview answers people are holding up as sacred gospel.

But beneath the surface, the differences are staggering.

pre-divergence Exandria, despite the gods literally walking the world in the flesh, the dominating force of mortal kind was arcane magic. A technologically advanced society, where man reaches for, and once even achieves, godhood. Meanwhile in pre-shapers war Araman, it was the priesthood that seems to be ruling. From the priestly houses of Halovar and Tachonis, to Azgra’s priests, to Sylandri’s perfect, demanded devotion being a requirement for everything, from access to magic to something as basic as reproduction.

Exandria is also a much more settled world. It had eight hundred years to recover from what was essentially an apocalyptic event. Meanwhile in Araman, the dust hadn’t even settled on the old age. There are many mortals who remember the shapers. The world is still hanging, still looking for a new balance, still with a vacuum of power trying to be filled.

There’s also a difference in the approach of the divinities themselves to the world and its people. When the Betrayers were trying to destroy the people of Exandria, the Prime Deities fought them. When they realised how much their tight grip on Exandria was hurting it, how much their wars were hurting it, they let go. They took their Betrayer siblings, who they still loved because they were, in fact, siblings

Meanwhile, when the Shapers saw Azgra wanting to destroy his people, wipe them off the face of Araman… they said they’d give him some of their own people to have. When mortals finally rebelled, the Shapers held on so tightly that even in death they hadn’t released their grip.

As a whole there is this sense, to me at least, that the Prime Deities of Exandria genuinely do love Exandria and its people. They tried to hold on, because they did love that place and didn’t want to go, but when they saw their presence was hurting it more they let it go, for its own good. They interfere minimally, lend their power to people, because they still love that place and the people. The Shapers, in the meantime, seem to have loved Araman for what it can give them. They exerted very tight control of their peoples, whereas I don’t think we have much evidence of the Prime Deities exerting much control of Exandria as a whole.

It’s no wonder that the people of Araman, oppressed under the weight of their Shapers, did away with them. Specifically the Rungjani, whose Shaper didn’t even try to hide his tyranny behind sweet words and tempting rewards. And it’s no wonder that in Exandria, the group trying to kill the gods was very much a fringe group.