#I could have watched the Briarwood arc twice | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

burr-ell · 2 years

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New Fan here again. I'm so happy to hear that villainesses and women with grey morality get to shine in Critical Role! I love them but they're a rare find. I'm invested in checking out more! But looking into CT Channel and it's a bit intimidating.

That's a lot of hours and I have yet to make sense of the rules. All I get so far is Nat 20 is good and 1 is really bad. Characters can't exactly do anything they want in the story because of some checks?

I am really amazed by the players! This whole thing is just like a round robin story in real time. How does that work?

The most astonishing fact I found so far is that Percy's long ass name I see going around is actually his real name. I thought it was just a joke! And for all his posh accent and dapper looks, he's just a berserk kitty fueled by R A G E that's ready to throw hands with anytime! If I didn't know any better, I'd think he's just compensating for being the only 100% human in his group.

Delilah is already one of my favorites but the other is Pike. I just love how her crisis of faith was handled and her big damn heroes moment was so awesome! Then her just carrying like most of final fight against the Briarwoods on her own! I love her. I love her. I love her! Best thing about it all, is her friends acknowledges it too!

I may have some of the characterizations wrong since I'm just going off from the cartoon but I like what I'm seeing so far and excited for more.

Thank for introducing this to me. If it weren't for you being so enthusiastic about this, I really wouldn't look twice to TLoVM or Critical Role at all.

Oh for SURE—it's a lot of content! I actually got into CR because i have a friend from when I was in undergrad who loves it, and I kinda understood that each episode was hours' worth of content and there were over a hundred episodes for each campaign...which is why, when I realized I needed something new to listen to while I worked that could kinda keep me in one place for a while, I started watching Critical Role. (That and I had a gigantic crush on Chrom Fire Emblem and I'm not embarrassed by that.) It's definitely a commitment if you really decide you want to get into it.

I think "berserk kitty fueled by R A G E that's ready to throw hands" is a pretty apt description of Percy by this point in the story 😂 Without spoiling too much, he does mellow out by the end, but he's still kind of a standoffish snooty cat. And Pike's crisis of faith was in my opinion a really good adaptation that kind of welded where she was in the campaign to her role in the Briarwood arc—Ashley Johnson wasn't always able to appear because she played a supporting role on the TV show Blindspot, so Pike was absent a lot in the original stream; I'm really excited to see more of her and get some development that she wasn't fully able to get (through no fault of her own, and to Ashley's credit when she was there she was still journeying!).

If it weren't for you being so enthusiastic about this, I really wouldn't look twice to TLoVM or Critical Role at all.

hnnnnnghhhhh <33333333 i cant form words just know that this was like injecting serotonin directly into my brain stem

I am really amazed by the players! This whole thing is just like a round robin story in real time. How does that work?

So short answer: TTRPGs are like an unholy fusion of writing and math.

Long answer (and I mean really long; I apologize if I'm explaining anything you already knew or inferred!): Part of the appeal of actual play (playing a TTRPG for an audience and not just for the group) is that you're basically watching a story being written in real time...and the dice rolls reflecting the unpredictability of real life adds an extra layer of genuine unpredictability.

(I wrote up an explanation of the basics of DnD mechanics under the cut if you're interested—though part of the reason Critical Role gained a lot of traction is that the players aren't uber-nerds who have everything memorized, so there's a lot of back-and-forth on screen about what the rules are that has the added benefit of being friendly to people who are completely new to DnD and TTRPGs in general.)

You've got a DM (or Dungeon Master, specifically in DnD; since every TTRPG is different, the broad term is GM, or Game Master) who builds the world and establishes the setting and general plot threads, and the players have built characters that explore that setting. Part of the way they do that is through roleplay back and forth with each other and with the NPCs (non-player characters) played by the GM, and when the characters do something where there might realistically be a chance for success or failure (i.e. obtaining important information, persuading someone, recalling relevant knowledge, performing some physical feat), they roll their dice and let the numbers decide how well they do on various "skill checks" or "saving throws" (depends on the situation). Now when characters are rolling for these skill checks and saving throws, they're trying to meet what's called a DC, or Difficulty Class, which the DM sets depending on how difficult the challenge would reasonably be. So the exact outcome, based on the result, is still ultimately the GM's call, but generally rolling a natural 20 means the result is exceptionally good and specifically in a lucky, all-the-stars-have-aligned kind of way, while rolling a natural 1 means the result is exceptionally bad in the same sense.

But! It's not entirely up to the dice. Part of character creation in DnD is character stats (which are also decided by dice rolls; it's been a hot minute since I've done this myself, but you basically roll a D20 for your value in each stat and you choose which stat will have each value based on what you think is best for your character). The stats are Wisdom, Intelligence, Charisma, Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution, and those stats then influence a variety of what are basically subskills. (Stuff like Animal Handling, Survival, History, Performance, Investigation, et cetera. History, for example, is an Intelligence-based skill.) And the number assigned to each of those base stat determines what's called a "modifier", the number that will be added to any roll for a task that requires that particular skill. (So whatever your Intelligence modifier is will also be your modifier for a History check.)

So, to use Critical Role as an example, Grog's Intelligence score is a 6, so his modifier to any Intelligence-based skill check or saving throw is -2. His Strength, however, is 24, which means his modifier to any Strength-based skill check or saving throw is +7.

Characters may also have what's called a Proficiency Bonus, which they can add to a skill check in something they're proficient in, so that way a character who would reasonably be very good at a particular skill isn't just left up to the dice and a modifier. For example, Percy has a Proficiency Bonus in tinkering because he makes all his own weapons and it's part of his background that he's good at intricate handicraft work. So when he's trying to fix his guns, there's a greater chance of success because that's realistic given his character...but there's still always a chance he could mess up, just like anyone who's good at something, which is why there's a dice roll to begin with.

Combat functions in essentially the same way—instead of a Difficulty Class, when a character rolls to attack, they're trying to meet or exceed an enemy's AC, or Armor Class, and there are different bonuses given to specifically modify a character's attack (based on their personal skillset as well as any bonuses from a particular weapon), but it runs on the same principle. (Characters who use magic usually don't have to roll for an attack; instead their opponent rolls a saving throw against that character's spell-save DC. This is, incidentally, why the notoriously dice-cursed Wil Wheaton usually plays casters.) Combat also has what's called an initiative order, where every player rolls a d20 and the combat round goes in order of highest to lowest result.

The more roleplay-heavy aspects of it are where things can get a bit tricky, because you don't want one character hogging all the spotlight at the expense of everyone else, but you don't want characters getting ignored. DMs generally account for who is and isn't experienced with this sort of thing by having a heavier or lighter hand in guiding the players, and at a table like Critical Role's where everyone is good friends and they all know and trust each other, there's a general understanding that they're all going to get equal time in the overall narrative. They're good about letting everybody have their day in the limelight and picking up on cues from each other—and the fact that they're all professional actors who are trained in improv specifically is part of why it works as well as it does.

Now sometimes the rules as they are don't work for what a particular table is trying to do, which is why you'll often see something "homebrewed" by a DM. Matt actually had to do a lot of homebrewing for Campaign 1 because it had been going on for a couple of years as a home game prior to Felicia Day getting them to broadcast it for her company Geek & Sundry; they were using a DnD-adjacent system called Pathfinder and they had to transplant everything into the actual DnD system because DnD was the bigger name and therefore the bigger draw. (Percy in particular required a lot of work and even nerfing on occasion because the Gunslinger class doesn't exist in DnD at all, and some of the confusion regarding rules in those early days was because they were coming from a different system than what they were used to and still trying to figure out how it worked.)

I hope this helps! And for what it's worth—if watching a whole streamed campaign isn't ultimately right for you, that's okay! As far as I'm concerned, you're just as welcome in the fandom, and I'm delighted that I was able to introduce you.

#asks #long post

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eponymous-rose · 5 years

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The Briarwood Arc: A Summary (with timestamps!)

With all the excitement over CR’s new Kickstarter stretch goals including an animated series covering the first campaign’s Briarwood Arc, I thought it might be handy to have a little reference for folks wanting to jump in at this point (which, as it happens, is a great jumping-in point for the first campaign). This arc is a fan-favorite because it really marks the starting point of a lot of the more serious character development in the show, while setting the standard for bringing a character’s backstory front-and-center into the main plotline. It also happens to contain a ton of especially cinematic moments.

If you just want to jump in now, the Briarwood Arc is generally considered to be episodes 24-36 of the first campaign. Be aware that earlier episodes contain the chat (often a bastion of complaints; a strategically placed post-it note on the screen goes a long way) and also a player who leaves the show permanently after episode 27 (more info here). While there are good moments and context provided earlier on, it actually works just fine to jump in on episode 28 as the start of the arc.

If you’d like a summary of the arc, complete with timestamped links to key moments, read on!

The Briarwood Arc is tied in with the backstory of Taliesin Jaffe’s character, named (deep breath) Percival Fredrickstein Von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III.

Before meeting up with Vox Machina, Percy spent most of his time inventing and tinkering. One night, the de Rolos took Lord Sylas and Lady Delilah Briarwood in at their castle in Whitestone, invited them to stay for dinner... and the Briarwoods promptly started killing everyone, with the help of some of those inside the castle. Percy’s younger sister Cassandra helped him escape the attack, but she was shot down in a hail of arrows, and Percy barely survived by jumping into a freezing river. Not long after that, Percy started having dreams where a cloud of black smoke demanded vengeance... at which point he promptly woke up and started designing his first gun.

He’s been traveling with the rest of the group for some time now, studiously ignoring what’s been going on in the north and mostly trying to keep a low profile.

Things start taking a turn when, in episode 14, the party has a meeting with Sovereign Uriel Tal’Dorei, one of their most powerful political allies. Uriel casually mentions the Briarwoods’ names in passing (1:02:49). Percy manages to rally from that moment of shock and takes Uriel aside to fish for more details (1:25:28); he requests that any further information about the Briarwoods be sent his way.

Radio silence ensues until the party returns to Emon in episode 23, when Seeker Asum Emring (Uriel’s spymaster) approaches Percy to let him know the Briarwoods are coming to town in a week for a feast in their honor, celebrating the opening of a new trade route with the northeast (3:04:45). Asum’s clever enough (and has by now had enough northbound spies “mysteriously retire”) to be suspicious of the Briarwoods and is determined to keep an eye on them.

The start of episode 24 has the party finally talking about all this as a group; Percy explains his past history with the Briarwoods (0:20:48), and reveals that his Pepperbox revolver has names scrawled across five of the six barrels: the Briarwoods, plus three individuals who’d helped them in their slaughter. He mentions that he’d already tried to confront one of the three, Dr. Anna Ripley, but that her guards threw him into prison before he could even get close enough to see her face, which is how he wound up in the jail cell where the party first met him. Vox Machina pledge their support (0:28:47) to a tearful Percy, and start preparing for this unknown confrontation with the Briarwoods.

The plan (such as it is) is to have Scanlan turn Vax invisible during the feast, so he can do some snooping around. Percy will enter the feast disguised as Vax, just in case he gets put in a position to be recognized. They’ll play it by ear from there, following Percy’s lead.

The party runs into Asum at the main gates, and he instantly sees through Percy’s disguise when he doesn’t quite manage an imitation of Vax’s voice. (2:49:30) Asum mentions that Vax should meet him in the foyer while the feast’s underway to help him out with his reconnaissance.

Vox Machina watch as the Briarwoods make their appearance (2:59:10); they seem extremely self-possessed and charming, and a very tense dinner ensues. In the suspense, Vax completely forgets about going to reconnoiter with Asum, and then decides to follow the Briarwoods to their room at the end of the night to see what he can find out (3:39:00). After dispatching their guards, he opens the door to their chamber... only to see both of them looking directly at him. (3:43:10).

Episode 25 picks up after that cliffhanger, with an increasingly desperate Vax trying to talk his way out of the room (0:14:00). Sylas reveals himself to be a vampire, and he and Delilah attack. Vax manages to jump out a window and yell a warning to the rest of the group through the Earring of Whisper, but soon finds himself bleeding out alone at the Briarwoods’ feet (0:39:15). The rest of the party arrives in the courtyard just in the nick of time (complete with a legendary couple of rolls from Vex - 0:58:48) to rescue Vax from the brink of death, and to pull a baffled Asum out of the effects of a charm spell. In the battle, Vex is nearly killed in one shot by a particularly powerful spell from Delilah.

During the confrontation, the Briarwoods recognize Percy (1:16:38). They attempt to flee via carriage, then successfully flee via magic, but invite Percy and the rest of the party to join them in Whitestone, casually mentioning that it would be nice for him to visit his family once in a while (1:52:50).

Frustrated by the Briarwoods’ departure, Percy brutally interrogates the Briarwoods’ carriage driver, a terrified young man named Desmond (1:55:10). The party decides to lock Desmond up in their keep, mainly for his own protection. On a little side venture to help out Lillith, an ally who emerged unexpectedly during the fight, Percy snaps and completely annihilates a baddie (3:06:15), which understandably worries the group even more.

Unfortunately, after this big Percy-centric episode, Taliesin unfortunately is too ill to participate in episode 26, and Percy spends it working feverishly in his laboratory. For the rest of Vox Machina, the order of the day is having to explain to Uriel Tal’Dorei why they attacked important allies out of nowhere, which doesn’t go over super well (0:39:31). Asum reveals to the group that he’s keeping an eye on things and is trying to act like he’s still under the Briarwoods’ charm. In a frustrated attempt to improve their image by helping out some farmers, shit gets a little weird for Vox Machina (2:34:38).

Episode 27 opens with Percy waking up from a horrific nightmare about his family being slaughtered... that promptly takes form when he goes to check on Desmond and finds him being strangled by an invisible presence in the cells (0:17:07). Luckily, with Trinket’s help (and the rest of Vox Machina returning home at an opportune time), Desmond is saved and the ghostly presence is defeated, but it’s clear that there’s only one way forward: the party starts on the road to Whitestone.

In episode 28, after battling a behir along the way, the party arrives in Whitestone and cautiously scopes it out to find a city composed of an exhausted, downtrodden populace working in fear of the “new nobles” (1:39:00), with zombified giants patrolling the streets. The party’s plan right now centers around the city’s central symbol of hope: if they can bring the Sun Tree, a holy tree to the sun god Pelor in the town square, back to its earlier splendor, they hope to be able to thwart this vampiric assault on the city.

Unfortunately, as they get closer, they realize the Sun Tree has become a gallows. And the bodies are a very specific message. (2:39:13)

From an underground hideout, Keyleth uses her druidic abilities to attempt to commune with the Sun Tree, but discovers that it is, in fact, dead (2:54:05). Welcome to Whitestone.

Episode 29 starts with Keyleth attempting to resurrect the Sun Tree (and Travis and Laura battling traffic to get to the show), while Percy, Scanlan, and Vax check out a temple Percy remembers from his youth, the Zenith (0:26:27). This is the start of Vox Machina’s epic battle against doors, as it takes the three of them multiple spells and half an hour in real time to defeat... an unlocked door.

Once inside, they find the remains of Father Reynal and square off with a banshee that nearly kills Percy twice before Scanlan manages to finish it off (1:07:45). They discover that this temple has become a laboratory for someone who lost their hand attempting to replicate Percy’s firearm technology. At Percy’s request, Vax carves the de Rolo family crest into the altar, along with “Pelor lives in Whitestone”.

The party reconvenes and decides on the next course of action: attacking one of the “new nobles” of the town, one of the names on Percy’s List. Kerrion Stonefell. The party spends the night in their underground hideout, and Percy emphatically Does Not sleep well (1:29:45).

Before scoping out Stonefell’s mansion, the party decides to sow some seeds of rebellion in the city and chats with Keeper Yennen, a religious leader in the city, at his temple, the Lady’s Chamber. Percy doesn’t outright reveal his identity (the party’s been proceeding in disguise), but makes ambiguous statements that pique Yennen’s interest (2:04:30).

The party proceeds to Stonefell’s mansion and manages to infiltrate completely successfully, surprising Stonefell and launching into a vicious battle with perfect timing before he can set up his defenses (2:31:40). When Stonefell sees Percy’s weapon, he’s immediately confused and utters, “Ripley?”, revealing her to be the one who has been experimenting on Percy’s technology. Throughout the battle, dark smoke begins pouring from Percy’s body, and things get decidedly creepy as he dons a bird-faced mask to make the final blow on Stonefell (3:21:55). He promptly huddles in a corner of the room and tries to carve Stonefell’s name off his Pepperbox.

Meanwhile, the rest of the party brings around Vouk, Stonefell’s lieutenant. They try to get some information from him, and Vouk offers to take them to the Briarwoods’ “project room” below the castle in exchange for his life, which they decide isn’t very valuable information and is more likely a trap. Percy, coming out of his stupor as he discovers that Stonefell’s name has actually vanished from his gun, decides it’s best to set Vouk free, on the condition that he is marked and his tongue taken. Grog is only too happy to oblige, and Percy brands him with his gun (3:45:17). Grog and Scanlan are on board with this violence. The half-elves (Keyleth and the twins) are getting increasingly unnerved. The party carries the survivors out of the building, and Keyleth lights the mansion on fire once they’re out.

Episode 30 (which features everyone’s Halloween costumes) begins with a much-needed heart-to-heart among Vox Machina in their underground hideout about the nature of morality and trust (0:16:30). Their sleep that night is interrupted by a vampire attack that is in part thwarted by... Scanlan pissing on one, because running water (1:00:45). Even after the party relocates away from directly under the Sun Tree for the rest of the night, Percy has another restless night’s sleep, awakening with an even more heightened sense of corruption and sadism (1:31:08).

The party meets up with Jordana Whisk, the daughter of Simon, an enchanter Percy once knew who’s now working in the castle for the Briarwoods. They reveal that Percy is alive, although he can’t drop his illusion in front of her; she gives them some supplies and recommends they return to the Lady’s Chamber to speak further with Keeper Yennen. They do so, and wind up in a private conversation with Yennen and Percy’s father’s former chancellor, Archibald Desnay.

In front of these two allies, Percy finally reveals his true identity (2:35:20). But there’s another bombshell ready to drop: Archibald reveals that Percy’s sister Cassandra is alive, and has been secretly helping with the rebellion from her seat in the castle.

The party splits up past this point; there are three more nobles’ mansions remaining, so the party sends Scanlan alone to one to create a distraction while they attack another, leaving the fourth mansion for last. Scanlan... promptly turns into a triceratops (2:58:45).

Episode 31 opens with a truly epic segment in which Scanlan, working alone, just... annihilates the mansion through an increasingly bizarre sequence of events (0:14:55). It’s a glorious and surreal half-hour that culminates with the goliath Duke Goran Vedmire, one of the Briarwoods’ allies, getting thrown off a flaming rooftop in the middle of a thunderstorm. As you do.

The rest of Vox Machina, meanwhile, attacks Count Tylieri’s mansion, and discover the Count to be a vampire. Not to be outdone, Trinket rips off his head in the battle that ensues (1:32:00). The party starts interrogating a surviving guard, but when they discover that these guards were responsible for killing the people strung up on the Sun Tree, including a child, Vax slits his throat (2:07:55). Vex, meanwhile, confronts Percy, who still has smoke swirling around his ankles (2:11:32).

Once again, Keyleth burns down the mansion, and as the party reunites, they find people rising up in the streets, townsfolk beginning to hack down the zombie giants. This, it seems, is a point of no return: the rebellion has begun. Vox Machina make their way to the Sun Tree, where they find that the bodies have been cut down. In the midst of the storm, though, they see dozens, hundreds of skeletons approaching; the Briarwoods’ answer to the nascent rebellion (0:49:47).

Episode 32 opens with the unexpected return of a friend in spectral form: Pike crashes into the battle and starts annihilating skeletons (0:24:55), doing what a cleric does best. The party then splits into two groups to help the townsfolk deal with the remaining zombie giants. These dispatched, they regroup and learn that Pike’s been having visions of Whitestone, particularly of Percy; thanks to her goddess Sarenrae’s aid, she’s been sent in this spectral form to assist the party.

Heartened by the return of their friend, the party starts toward the castle itself. They find the hidden passage Percy and Cassandra used to escape during the attack and start in toward the castle. Very conscious of her friends’ concerns, alongside her own, Pike casts a restoration spell on Percy, who isn’t completely recovered, but seems a little less shaky (2:32:30).

Resting for the night in the tunnel, Percy and Vax have a heart-to-heart (2:42:45). Percy dreams again that night, this time hearing an ominous voice: “Don’t forget our deal.” (2:47:10)

Moving ahead the next day, the party emerges into the castle’s dungeons, where they find an old woman locked in a cell. After some awkward questioning, the group decides it’s probably best to come back for her later. At the old woman’s insistence, Vex pretends to try to pick the lock, and when she messes it up, the woman grabs her with both hands... except she doesn’t, because one of her hands is an illusion (3:32:40). Vex remembers that Anna Ripley lost a hand trying to reproduce Percy’s technology.

Coming off that realization, episode 33 begins with Vex revealing what she just figured out to the party (0:14:55). Keyleth dispels the woman’s illusion, revealing Anna Ripley, who immediately wants to join the party in taking the Briarwoods down. She explains that she helped the Briarwoods kill the de Rolos and seize power five years ago, but was just brought in to help out with some sort of mysterious construction project under the castle. When the work was finished, she claims, the Briarwoods were finished with her and locked her up to languish in the cell. Percy, bolstered by magical means, convinces her to lead them to Cassandra and further demands that she tell them how to find Professor Anders, his former teacher who turned on the family in the attack (Anders, Ripley, and the Briarwoods are the remaining names on the barrels of Percy’s gun).

When Percy reveals his identity to her, Ripley is frightened, but also unabashedly delighted (0:31:45). Unfortunately, around this time, Pike’s astral form dissipates.

The party, shaken and uneasy, allows Ripley to lead them to her chambers to get some of her things. Ripley reveals her latest project: a firearm she’s created based on Percy’s designs, working based off secondhand accounts. The party confiscates that, as well as a few potions, but lets her keep her armor in case of trouble.

They continue on to Cassandra’s chambers, where they find correspondence with Archibald Desnay about the ins and outs of several failed rebellion attempts. Percy starts to get impatient that they still haven’t found Cassandra (1:06:30). Ripley reveals a little more information: the Briarwoods have been working on some sort of distillery, used to melt down and focus the eponymous whitestone found in the region into “residuum”, which has powerful magical properties. The Briarwoods are using this residuum to do something with an old Ziggurat located beneath the castle, but she knows nothing more about that side of it beyond that it involves some third party. She hazards a guess that the Ziggurat is located right underneath the Sun Tree itself.

When the party expresses an interest in skipping over Anders and going straight for the Briarwoods, Ripley starts baiting Percy, reminding him that Anders was his sister’s keeper, and convinces him to go after Anders instead (1:11:55). Vex, frustrated and keeping an arrow nocked at Ripley’s throat, tells Vax to sneak ahead and check out the study.

As Vax gets close to the study, he sees a frantic-looking Anders holding a knife to Cassandra’s throat. As Vax jumps in to intervene, Cassandra calls out that it’s a trap (1:19:46). Anders promptly slits her throat. The rest of the party hastens to catch up, with Vex tasking Trinket to hang on to Ripley. Keyleth heals a very confused Cassandra (a detail the party misses: when Cassandra is healed, there’s suddenly no more blood on her skin or clothing). Grog gets caught in a Dominate Person spell and is ordered to kill Vax, which he nearly succeeds in doing; a couple more hits from magically animated suits of armor take Vax near to death, but Keyleth and Vex bring him back from the brink.

Meanwhile, Percy, bird-shaped mask concealing his face, wreathed once again in black smoke, confronts Anders (2:00:00). It does not end well for the professor. Anders’ name flares and vanishes from the barrel of Percy’s gun. Vex grabs Percy by the hand and tells him to take off the mask (2:09:15).

When the last enemies are dispatched, the party realizes that Ripley’s making an escape; Grog, Scanlan, and Trinket nearly catch up with her, but she uses magic to evade capture and disappears. A badly shaken Vax approaches Keyleth: “You know I’m in love with you, right?” (0:04:00)

Percy castigates and then thanks Vax for his rash action, then turns to Cassandra for the first time in five years. “...hi.” (0:17:57) Cassandra reveals that the Briarwoods took her in after the arrows felled her, healed her, and set her up as a caged figurehead in the castle to earn them legitimacy. They talk about the Briarwoods’ plans, and Cassandra insists that she’ll be accompanying the group, wearing her mother’s armor, especially since she’s been working against the Briarwoods by aiding rebellions for so long. She and Percy have a great little sibling moment (0:21:30). On their way down into the cellars of the castle, Cassandra reveals that Delilah isn’t a vampire like Sylas, but is instead an extremely powerful human necromancer. The two of them speak frequently of this third party, “The Whispered One”.

The party fights spirits of the de Rolo’s ancestors on their way down; one ghost comes very close to killing Percy outright. Scanlan heals him, then literally mocks the ghost to death... again. (1:59:30)

Episode 34 has the party at a crossroads, with one path leading toward the acid pits used in the residuum distillation process (Pike has also returned, in spectral form). The party finds a bronze room with several small gemstones built into the floor. After some experimentation, with each member of the party touching a gemstone, Cassandra finds a gemstone next to a door nearby and touches it... and two large walls of green glass slam down, trapping Vox Machina in the room.

Behind Cassandra, the Briarwoods walk through the door. Vax immediately notices a placard behind them and uses his magical cloak to teleport to it, slamming one hand on the button. The Briarwoods are amused as the button, horrifically, causes acid to be pumped into the room containing the rest of Vox Machina... (1:19:14). Lord Briarwood promptly uses charm magic to pull Vax to their side, and they bring him with them as they leave Vox Machina to be dissolved.

And Cassandra? Cassandra confronts Percy through the glass: “Your sister left us the day those arrows found my chest. She did not die from those wounds, but to watch you leave me there in the snow. I have a new family. I am a Briarwood, and I have a destiny with the Whispered One.” (1:26:40)

Once Vox Machina have been left alone, Pike notices that the acid melts whitestone, and that the ceiling of this room is made of whitestone. Using a flying potion confiscated from Ripley, Vex manages to turn the tubes delivering the acid so they burn an escape route into the ceiling.

As the party begins to trail after the Briarwoods, Cassandra, and Vax, Percy realizes that there’s a new name on the previously blank barrel of his gun: Cassandra de Rolo. (2:07:42)

The party manages to surprise the Briarwoods on the stairs leading up to the top of the ziggurat, and the fight begins in earnest. In the fray, Vax manages to break out of the charm spell, and while Cassandra begins the fight on the Briarwoods’ side, she eventually drops her sword, torn and uncertain. Keyleth nearly annihilates Sylas with a couple of well-placed Sunbeam spells, and Scanlan thwarts Delilah’s attempt to teleport him to safety with a Counterspell.

Percy manages to shoot Delilah, but Cassandra runs to her with a healing potion. Keyleth and Pike take that moment to destroy Sylas Briarwood once and for all. (3:44:46)

Delilah is devastated. “You can’t... I broke the world for us! No...” (3:47:11) She uses short-range teleportation to get out of the immediate line of fire. Vax and Grog knock out Cassandra and tie her up, to confront later.

Still able to fly thanks to the potion she took earlier, Vex gets a bird’s-eye view of the inside of the ziggurat: a room with the shape of a hand carved into the floor. Delilah’s standing at the center of it, reading some sort of scroll.

The party jumps into action, taking shots at Delilah from the top of the wall into the room, but she’s focused on her spell and splashes some of her own blood on a black orb in the center of the room.

The orb starts to spin. (4:04:30) All around Delilah, the walls are covered in a tapestry of hundreds of dead bodies, each missing their left hand and/or left eye, and they begin to writhe.

Vex, still flying, dives down to try to get the orb out of there. Delilah turns and casts the same spell on her she did back in episode 25: Finger of Death. (4:13:49) Vex comes within 1 HP of being permanently killed by the spell.

Delilah turns back to the orb, which spins faster and faster... and suddenly flashes, in an instant, down to the size of a dime. Her terrified anticipation turns to horror. “It can’t be too soon.”

The writhing walls stop. In fact, all magic within the ziggurat stops... including Vex’s flying spell. (4:16:40) She hits the ground with enough force to knock her out, and it takes the frantic party a moment to realize that they can’t heal her with magic, and she’s now bleeding out. Percy shoots Delilah, but manages not to kill her outright, instead shooting off her arm. Fortunately, Vex stabilizes on her own.

A terrified Vax stays with his sister while the rest of the party drags the unconscious Lady Briarwood away. Keyleth stays behind, experimentally poking a piece of residuum glass into the orb... and promptly takes a massive amount of damage and is nearly sucked into it (4:33:21). Vax realizes she stayed behind and runs back toward her... but she recognizes that her initial plan of collapsing the ziggurat isn’t going to work if she can’t use magic. The party flees.

Episode 35 starts with Vex being revived and healed outside the antimagic effect of the orb. A dazed, exhausted, and overwhelmed Cassandra explains her part in all this: the Briarwoods didn’t just keep her around for legitimacy, they kept her around to find out about and quash rebellions like the ones that Archibald attempted. (0:40:38) She finally makes eye contact with Percy, realizing that even with the (magically and non-magically) charming influence of the Briarwoods and her fury and fear at how Percy left her for dead, her family deserves to be avenged.

The familiar black smoke begins to billow out of Percy’s sleeves, and the smoke entity that’s been speaking to him begins demanding revenge. (0:41:30) Percy points the gun at Lady Briarwood’s head and demands that the entity take Cassandra’s name off the gun. “Did I even want revenge before I talked to you?”

The party’s very unnerved by this entire conversation, especially considering they can only hear Percy’s side of it and they see him occasionally putting the gun to his own head. Percy fires the gun at Lady Briarwood’s hand, revealing that the gun was broken in the fight. “I’m not satisfied. I want my money back.” The entity tries something, but Percy shrugs it off.

Lady Briarwood regains consciousness and Percy demands answers, creating the illusion of Sylas’ death to torment her (0:46:00). Delilah, boiling with fury, just mutters that the Whispered One gave her Sylas back, and Percy took him from her again. The group knocks her out again.

Pike and Scanlan recall some information about the Whispered One: it’s a phrase used to refer to the name “Vecna”, a powerful archlich, who once, hundreds and hundreds of years ago, tried to ascend to godhood and was halted in that process.

As the conversation continues, Percy begins to reach for his rifle, but pushes away the urge, and actually manages to expel the strange smoke creature from his body (0:59:19). The party very literally battles Percy’s demon, and Grog and Trinket manage to destroy it (2:02:05). A little remnant of darkness remains in Percy, but the creature is destroyed.

Percy defers to Cassandra when it comes to executing Delilah (2:03:50). Cassandra stabs her. “You took them away from me. And now we’re taking everything away from you.”

The party walks back past the acid pits. As they do, Scanlan uses magic to convince Percy to hand him his gun, the Pepperbox, and promptly throws it into the acid (0:05:26). That last little nugget of darkness in Percy’s chest vanishes as the gun is melted. Percy is somewhat more alarmed at how expensive the gun will be to replace.

Vox Machina emerge back into the city of Whitestone, where the townsfolk have gathered up the last of the Briarwoods’ powerful allies (minus Ripley, who is nowhere to be seen). Grog executes a Countess Jazna Grebin, but Vedmire (who survived his fall off the building) is kept alive, in keeping with Percy’s determination that Whitestone is now a city of mercy. Vox Machina also discreetly let some people know about the horrific scene below the castle, and start gathering people to study the orb and its antimagic effects.

Keyleth goes to check on the Sun Tree, and determines that the tree isn’t so much dead as dormant, and is now starting to awaken again. Vax finds her there, and after some awkwardness (mostly out-of-character flailing by the rest of the group), tells her that he’ll give her all the time she needs to process his confession: “If you’ll have me, I’m yours.” (0:59:14)

The sun finally sets on a clear night in Whitestone, and the rebuilding begins. (1:05:34)

(Episode 36, you ask? Episode 36 is Whitestone celebrating its first Winter’s Crest Festival in a very, very long time.)

#critical role #critical role spoilers #long text post

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words-writ-in-starlight · 5 years

Text

modmother replied to your post “hey so rewatched legend of the sword yesterday w/ a friend (partially...”

I WOULD READ THE HELL OUT OF THIS

Good news, I wrote more Legend of the Sword AU. This isn’t a complete fic, but here, Final Battle Sacrifice: Briarwood Redux.

every version of me dead (and buried)

Sylas Briarwood listens to the chaos settling in outside with a neutral expression, ice in his heart and snowmelt in his veins.

It's a simple equation. The Briarwoods have an army of Blacklegs, armed and armored. The de Rolo children have one mage, one magical sword, and perhaps a dozen motley fighters between them.

The outcome is foregone.

The Briarwoods are about to be wiped off the map, nothing more than a shadow of nightmare for people to tell their grandchildren about. The days before the Born King, when the de Rolos were deposed by a sorceress and her consort. They simply do not have the strength of numbers to stand down the de Rolo boy with Excalibur in hand, to say nothing of his companions. If they had the incredible good fortune to kill Percival outright, his traitorous bitch of a sister is at his back, ready to take up the blade and the birthright.

And the reality is that they simply won't get that chance--the de Rolo allies are few in number, but absolutely dominant on the battlefield. The red-haired windwalker mage, the twin street thieves in blue and black, the berserker Northman, Frederick de Rolo's own bard and priest, having escaped the purge and apparently returned for vengeance. It's a fatal combination. Perhaps Sylas and Delilah could have turned the forces back, could have held them off, if they'd been able to shelter in Camelot's high walls and wait the attack out.

The de Rolos, though, have taken their lessons well from the fall of their family. They wasted no time on border skirmishes, struck straight for the heart of the castle with all their might and magic. They are already inside, and they will win. The Blacklegs are no more than living shields at this point, training dummies, and Delilah--

Delilah, his beautiful merciless wife, the love of his long life, is finally all out of things to sacrifice. Cassandra de Rolo might have been a possibility, but she saved herself more thoroughly than she knew when she turned on them to save her brother. No longer beloved, no longer an option. All of Delilah's grief and courage will be for nothing, because her magic just is not enough.

Sylas turns away from the window and picks up the knife on his dinner plate, testing the edge with his thumb. He watches it part the skin there with a kind of removed interest, like a man who has never seen blood before at all, and leaves the room.

The lake below the castle stinks of mold and decayed things, layered over the muddled scent of wet stone, and the bell seems to echo forever through the cavern. Sylas has been here, before, when Delilah bled her heart out for the power to remake the world, but he is alone this time, and the difference is infinitely more than he imagined. When the water parts, it reveals a slick black-skinned creature with the upper body of a handsome young man--not unlike Percival in his features, Sylas notes distantly--and the lower body of a many-tentacled thing. Sylas has to swallow against a sudden surge of nausea as those fathomless eyes lock onto his and the lips part in a smile that shows a thousand sharp teeth.

"My lord," says the thing in the lake. It forces its upper body out of the water and sketches Sylas an elaborate bow, mocking. "There is trouble on the surface, I think."

"It's the boy," Sylas says. His voice is a thousand leagues away, but from what he can hear it's sure and steady. "The last of the de Rolos have come to retake the castle, and we are overrun."

"A tragedy," the thing in the lake purrs. Its skin is so perfectly black that it seems like smoke made flesh, shadow made solid, and the whites of its eyes and teeth are disconcerting, jarring, against the even darkness. "And where is your lady wife? Defending her crown to the last?"

"She will lose," Sylas says. He blinks twice and suddenly, he is himself again, in his own body, clutching the knife in his hand with such fervor that the engraved hilt is certainly leaving marks on his palm. "She hasn't admitted it to herself yet, but she will lose, and everything she has done and given and wept for will be for nothing."

He is losing the thing's interest. He can compel its attention with the bell, perhaps, but that doesn't force it to care, and while Delilah is all Sylas cares about, it would be naive to assume that the Briarwoods are anything more than this creature's latest hobby. The thing drifts over to a stone and lounges against it, with a liquid drape to its limbs that nothing remotely humanoid should be able to achieve. It gestures disinterest, with one hand and three tentacles, and says, "That is no concern of mine."

"She has provided for you through all these years!" Sylas snaps.

"And is she here now, to beg my help again?" The thing smiles again, showing off needle-like teeth. "Or did she send you to me, to grovel in her place? I do not care who rules in the castle above."

"She didn't send me," Sylas says. "She doesn't know I'm here."

That earns him an uncomfortably avian tilt of the thing's head, and a murmured, "Well, well. Isn't that interesting." It disengages from its stone couch and swims nearly to the edge of the lake, where the water is just barely deep enough to accomodate it. Sylas has never seen the creature entire, but he has always suspected that there is more beneath the surface that it has ever let on. "So, my lord," the thing asks, voice slick and sweet. "Are you here to make a request?"

"I want you to give my wife the power to stand against the Born King," Sylas says.

"That--is a great deal to ask," the thing says consideringly. "What will you pay, for this gift?"

"Anything," Sylas says, without a moment's hesitation. "Everything."

And he raises the knife to his own throat.

The thing in the lake laughs, and Sylas knows he's won.

"You would take the thing your wife loves most, to see her victorious? Condemn her by saving her?" The thing reaches up as if to stroke Sylas' cheek, but ebbs back before touching him. "I do think I underestimated you, my lord."

"Do you accept?" Sylas presses the blade harder into his skin, until he feels a bright arc of pain and blood beginning to trickle hot down his flesh. "I will not see her reduced. I will not see her defeated. I am all she has left to sacrifice, and I would rather die to save her than see her fall at the hands of that--that child."

"I will give her all the power I can offer," the thing in the lake says, and opens its arms to Sylas like an old friend.

Sylas closes his eyes and pictures Delilah, in crown and gown, the dazzling queen he had always known she could be, given the chance. In his mind's eye, his wife smiles at him, the slow, sweet thing that first ensnared him when they were young and he couldn't imagine anything more beautiful than Delilah, smiling.

It's been a long time and much bloodshed since those first innocent days, but Sylas never did imagine anything more lovely than his joyful bride.

He turns the point of the blade against the hollow below his jaw, where his pulse beats frantically against the thin skin, his heart trying to get in as many beats before the end as possible, perhaps. Foolish. Base instinct, trying to stop him, trying to save him, because base instinct does not understand arithmetic. Does not understand that Delilah, victorious, is worth any price, any payment, any sacrifice.

She will forgive him.

Sylas drives the knife into his throat, in one swift thrust all the way to the base of the blade, and wrenches it out at once, casting it into the water. Blood begins to bubble through his lips before the pain strikes him--good, he thinks with preturnatural calm and clarity. Good. He pierced the windpipe. Dying will be unpleasant, drowning as his fool heart desperately pumps blood into his carotid artery and thus into his lungs, but swift.

Sylas Briarwood stumbles three steps forward, and crashes to his knees in the frigid water of the underground lake. One hand is pressed thoughtlessly to his throat, as if to hold back the tide of crimson spilling his life onto the stone, and the other reaches out blindly, forward, seeking--

A cold grip clamps around his wrist, and Sylas is wrenched down under the water.

High above, in the half-finished mage's tower, Delilah Briarwood freezes.

Later, no one will remember the details. All they will remember is the explosion of brilliant red-white fire, and the sound of the usurper queen screaming for her husband like a thing destroyed.

That makes it hard, later, to hate her properly

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