Self-appointed captain of the Laudmoore ship

Critical Role Campaign 4, Episode 30 - “Here in the Dark”

Plus bonus Matt reaction:

"Above table, this is not a good look." is the only thing that makes me thing this wasn't necessarily the intention but we can go into that once I've explained the rest but this is overexplaining everything indigenous coded time not deciding if this was personally significant to Kattigan time

"He's on the outskirts of the party wandering around the perimeter of the group meeting just dancing quietly to himself. Sort of step-touching around, but watching and what you think you're seeing is a fool and maybe a part of him is. But he's listening to them all and listening to where they have to go and that foolishness starts to fade away and instead of being on the outside of the group, he slowly folds himself back into the circle."

What's going on amongst the larger party here is what white people might appropriatively call a pow wow. This make what Kattigan is doing that much more reminiscent of pow wow dances. If you look up "Pow wow southern straight dance" you can find what I immediately imagined him to be doing, sans regalia and song.

Pow wows and the dances and competitions at them are largely newer phenomenon that started as a way to hold onto outlawed traditions like war dances. Straight dance specifically is associated with stories of hunting and war parties searching for enemies. In my area we have a specific dance called Round Dance where those not in the band nor indigenous at all are invited to join a similar step-touch-y dance in a circle. Some hold hands some don't but the Round dance is symbolic of friendship and mutual support.

So maybe it's a bad look, but he's getting ready to go hunting with his friends and he's doing a hunting dance around them in a circle? And he's indigenous? That's indigenous coding.

If you want to see a bunch of Pow wow videos with all the different dances, the Gathering of Nations Pow Wow will have a lot of variety and plenty of videos up of the 2026 one are on YouTube already

Additionally, once he's done his little pre hunt dance around the circle and theyre done their talk, he goes to the fire. As I've made fairly clear, I don't have a lot of personal experience with pow wows, but in my family the men have always been either been fire tenders or drummers, and the women have always been dancers. This isn't entirely specifically because of a gender divide in the tribe just our family tended to do it because fire tending for our band is a man's job and drummers would sit nearest the fire tenders. So the straight dance like dancing being nearly immediately followed by fire watching felt extra intentional to me.

We hope you're all having fun working hard on your gifts! Make sure they're posted on AO3 (see Q.11 of the FAQ) by Monday 20th July.

There's also plenty of time to write treats for any of the requests in the collection - all the way up until creator reveals on Sunday 2nd August!

🌗 Many faces of Exandria 🌒

Every story leaves a face behind.

It's strange to think how many stories, laughs, tears, and unforgettable moments can fit into one world, and somehow still leave room for more.

120+ hours of drawing later (which is only about 30 episodes of Critical Role 👀) here’s my tribute to the world of Exandria. 3 campaigns, all guest characters over 10 years of streaming and a moon full of villains.

Go in peace. 🌩️