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utilitycaster · 3 years

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Wizard Breakdown Tracker: Campaign 2 Finale Edition

AND LO THE COMEUPPANCE OF TRENT IKITHON HATH COMETH UP, AND I SAW IT, AND IT WAS SO FUCKING GOOD

I began this in late March, amidst the mists and fiercest frosts* and blithely declared my intentions to "to keep up with this nonsense until such time as Trent Ikithon is dead or as good as".

Well,

Let us begin. I should warn you that it's a long one.

As a reminder Caleb Widogast is a PC and is not included in the wizard breakdown tracker, except in Quebec.**

Finally: due to the nature of the finale and epilogues and such, the timeline is just completely fucked and some of this is pure headcanon. I promised nonsense to you two months ago; to nonsense we shall return.

Lady Vess Derogna: I eulogized her last week and as she's dead she gets no actual assessment. So this is just to say that Ludinus did not even like, register her seat as empty when he spoke to Caleb. Vess, babe, you got involved with some real bad groups. Like, the Emotionally Repressed Uk'otoa Warlock Family is fully out there being the fucking Skywalkers of the Lucidian Ocean and you still stand out as a shining example of Girl, What Were You Thinking.

Oremid Hass: honestly he's mostly been here to shut people up because when I made the first one despite clearly saying "I am not including people who haven't shown up recently" people were like "WhAt AbOuT oReMiD hAsS" and it was just like. easier to do it. Anyway we still haven't seen him but I'm hoping he was ignorant of Trent's crimes; I think both the Halls of Erudition and the Soltryce Academy would benefit from keeping their weird cat wizard professors.

Conclusion: 5/10. I mean it can't be like, great; even if he was innocent, having the Cobalt Soul on your ass is going to stress you out. Good thing Scrytube exists.

Pumat Sol: This was one of several cases where it's like...man I wish we'd gotten to see him just one more time, but also, this means the last time he saw the Nein during their main adventure was as the Spice Girls, and also Vess is dead, and that is beautiful. Anyway I hope that shortly before his return expedition with Essek to Aeor, after a difficult day at the Cobalt Soul in support of Beau during Zeenoth's trial, Caleb takes a break before meeting up with his friends and purchases some of those spells with the money he received as reparations from Trent Ikithon's seized assets. Also I hope Pumat went Tenser's Transformation on any Volstrucker spies and that they wisely ran away.

Conclusion: 2/10. It's not that he's worried, exactly, so much so that he's approached by someone...not exactly savory, bearing a pretty rare artifact who will part with it for a surprisingly low price provided he doesn't ask any questions. Pumat quickly clocks this is coming from the Myriad, but he wouldn't need to because Jester pretty quickly tells him. But they're really good artifacts and, uh, geez, the Assembly sure had its own moral quandaries, don'tcha know.

Ludinus Da'leth: Caleb Widogast proved himself in many ways this episode. Not only did he both think through the implications of time travel and how to avoid loops or contradictions better than quite literally anyone I can think of - and I love me some fucked up time travel stories - but he decisively made the choice to remove it as an option. He allowed himself to trust, to let go, to grieve, to let like three of his friends simultaneously sit on Ikithon's abdomen which honestly probably should have burst that guy's liver then and there, and finally, to love. But all that aside, he was probably the first person to match Ludinus Da'leth for sangfroid in a good four centuries.

The status of the Assembly was left open, so I don't know if Ludinus specifically faced consequences. I will however say that I think he felt the pangs of something in his slimy, hollow chest, seeing his two evil frenemies' seats become vacant in rapid succession as Caleb Widogast calmly turned down the offer of a lifetime and as the Cobalt Soul sharpened their...fists(?) rhetoric.

Conclusion: 5/10. Not sure he's capable of higher, but if he is I wish Caleb Widogast, Beauregard Lionett, and possibly Astrid Beck a very pleasant making Ludinus Da'leth's life a living hell.

Trent Ikithon: imagine being held in a prison cell in a time before electricity, unable to use your two most powerful weapons - your voice and your magic. Now imagine doing so, but also you are a horrific abuser with no empathy such that making up stories in your head isn't even going to be entertaining.

Conclusion: Oh this is good he's just perma-stuck at 9/10. Deny that bitch catharsis and hope his liver lasts a good long while. Maybe let someone trustworthy - perhaps one of the Clays, who deserve a little vengeance, heal that jaundice to ensure he spends a decent chunk of time in imprisonment before he dies. Say, eleven years. Seems fitting.

Then Beau can kill him with a whole bale of suude because god that's fucking funny.

Astrid Beck: I know people are probably thinking she had hers onscreen this episode but I have Thoughts. I think it happened in the past week in-universe, off-screen. I find it difficult that Trent didn't put two and two together regarding the necklaces and possibly even the escape in Nicodranas. And yet she's still there, by his side. She doesn't want to fight, clearly; it is not hard to turn her even without the dominate person, and when Trent is at her mercy she needs to be held back from killing him. But we know something snapped when she told Caleb it would be a good time to strike.

I think Trent didn't bring any of it up, and there was nothing to push back against. I think it was like that every day for half her life. I think she gave up, in those few days while Caleb was in Aeor. And maybe in a different story she'd have had time to come back herself, and finish the job. I hope she would have. But when she first appeared in combat at the Blooming Grove? I think that was a hopeless person.

Conclusion: The good news is she can make what she wants of the rest of her life, whether that's mostly sticking with the status quo except a lot less child torture, or whether she becomes the insider in the Lionett-Widogast Assembly Destruction Apparatus. Her future is her own for the first time in decades. But at some point shortly before her first appearance in the finale she hit 10/10 and she hit it hard.

Welcome! This is definitely a funny post that is NOT about abject despair.

eɪʌdwʊlf: Okay on the other hand, others have made the excellent point that he just like...is a big strong man who exclusively seems to make passes at people who insult and/or stab him. The fact that Caleb compares him to Fjord did sort of clarify to me why Eadwulf was my personal minor NPC of choice but also while I see Astrid as mostly a tragic figure with a deliberately ambiguous but ultimately hopeful ending, Eadwulf, despite sharing the same basic story as Astrid, is hilarious to me, because he doesn't end up on the Assembly. And I don't think he wants it.

You know, before it was confirmed that Caleb was also romantically involved with Eadwulf I was like "oh is this guy not only going through these experiences as a teen but also he's third wheeling the whole time?" but here's the thing. He was still the third wheel, just not romantically. I'm like, pretty sure Trent saw him as such. I mean, no one was recommending Wulf for the Assembly. And while his choice to give a deposition means he does not need to run far away, and while I do choose to believe he becomes Astrid's house husband, I also think there is a great story where he does run and he lives out the rest of his days in Ank'harel or Tal'Dorei and as the myths of the Mighty Nein slowly coalesce, as the Assembly is torn down and the crew of a ship in Lucidian slays a leviathan and a woman in Nicodranas teaches a generation of mad archer-bombers he hears vague scraps of news and swigs from his Wristpocketflask and says "I am so fucking glad I don't have to deal with any of that shit."

Conclusion: I just can't see his needle moving from 4/10 actually. It's just stuck there, except when Yasha outdoes him with the Harvest Close decorations and then it briefly shoots up to 9/10.

Allura Vyesoren: I understand not seeing her in the finale; there was a lot to do and not much to say. I am going to be magnanimous towards the Mighty Nein, a word that through connotation implies I may be more powerful than they are, and say they gave her back her staff and Kima back her sword. Actually I choose to believe that part of the off-screen Nicodranas partying includes Yussa messaging her to come by and she does and she brings Kima and it's great.

Conclusion: 1/10. The world is saved and this time she literally just had to let a Cat Wizard use her staff. This is getting easy, and the fact that Tharizdun cults are increasing in activity is fine like it happens every few decades. She does briefly go to a 6 when an absolutely hammered Yussa explains his particular role but Kima and some fine wine calm her down.

Yussa Errenis: Yussa made decisions that nearly rival Vess's and probably tie with the Warlocks of The Coast: Pelagic The Seal-shattering. I cannot stress this enough: Caleb would have been well within his rights to confiscate the Happy Fun Ball and honestly the main reason he didn't was probably that he himself was thinking about going to Aeor and maybe playing with the time-space continuum a little bit. And yet Yussa not only survived, but he made friends in the bargain.

Also he's now officially reclaimed the title of Wildmount's Archmage Who Gets Off Scot-Free from Everything from Ludinus Da'leth. Fucking pettiness icon, that Yussa Errenis, and I wouldn't have him any other way.

Conclusion: 0/10. He actually did learn his lesson and it's "be friends with the Mighty Nein before making poor decisions." And he's right! We cannot help but stan.

Essek Thelyss: kind of jumped the gun there on the sad deep meta for him last week and a part of me just wants to be like LOOK. LOOK. THESE WIZARDS ARE BOYFRIENDS. But you know, I think I'll let him speak for himself:

Episode 97: I am but a humble, selfish creature...There are so many mysteries around these beacons, around dunamis, what it's capable of. My entire life, I've been propped up to be perhaps worthy of being one to break those boundaries. To find applications for it that could change everything. And if I don't do it, the first person who does, I don't trust them.

Episode 141: But such pursuits are selfish. For the more you understand time, understand you cannot see the ramifications of changing such things. Were I have found this before I found you, perhaps I may have done some incredible, terrible things with it. But I accept my regrets, my thoughts now, and I'm here today with this knowledge, in this moment with you, because of those mistakes. And as much as they hurt me, I don't want to change a thing."

[moments later, in response to Caleb outlining his exact plans for 'such pursuits']: Will you do it? Will you do it? I will help you.

Conclusion: to go from point A to point B like that? You think, even given the infinity that exists between the number zero, and the number ten - even that small infinity we all have access to, in a fashion - I can rank that? On a scale?

Halas Lutagran, aka Known Gem Wizard Hotsauce Lutefisk:

"And so we leave the Mighty Nein. The camera pans out, from a lavender tiefling on small ship on Darktow. We travel a few degrees north of east, towards the coast; on our way we find a somewhat larger ship on which a half-orc and a blue tiefling have their arms around each others' shoulders, gazing out towards the sunset. We move on, reaching the coast; in Nicodranas we find a family of halflings - a mother, a father, and a young son, having a lively dinner, two crossbows and an empty potion bottle resting on a side table for after the meal. We travel through the Wuyun Gates, flying over the small towns of Trostenwald and Alfield. We do not alight in Zadash; we follow the Amber Road north to Rexxentrum. It is darker there, further east, but we stop in two flats, one near the Cobalt Soul with a riot of flowering window boxes where two women laugh and kiss over glasses of wine, another just outside of the campus of the Soltryce Academy where two men, one human and one elven, read as they lean against each other on an overstuffed couch, the legs of which have been scratched by several cats. We then resume our just-north-of-east direction for a time across chilly forests until we at last finish in a garden, surrounded by purple crystals. It is dark but we see two tall figures; firbolgs, a man and a woman. The man is smiling as he holds his staff, topped by a crystal not unlike the ones at the perimeter of this site, and the woman gives him a friendly punch in the shoulder.

These are the Mighty Nein. Their deeds are many, if unevenly heralded. The consequences thereof are for another story. At their hands, the dead of Aeor are finally free; perhaps some of the living as well. Uk'otoa is nearly unbound. Tharizdun's chains loosen. And me? I am still in this FUCKING gem."

Conclusion: still in this FUCKING gem/10.

*not irl; I live in a swamp, and our frosts are long gone by late March. However, the first Wizard Breakdown Tracker did mark the return to Eiselcross after the Nicodranas-Emon-Rexxentrum-Vergesson-Nicodranas-Plane of Fire/Happy Fun Ball-Zadash-Blooming Grove whirlwind tour.

**Only Quebec Critters may read the following:

Caleb Widogast: S'il vous plaît envoyez-moi de la poutine. Désolé si c'est grammaticalement incorrect; Je ne connais pas le français. Conclusion: On s'en fout? Il a un petit ami gothique!

#critical role #wizard breakdown tracker #caleb widogast #essek thelyss #allura vyesoren #yussa errenis #known gem wizard hotsauce lutefisk #trent ikithon #astrid becke #eadwulf grieve #ludinus da'leth #vess derogna #pumat sol #oremid hass #the mighty nein #i had to zoom out to 67% to post this gargantuan thing tumblr sure is a functional website huh #also if you're wondering no i did not proofread #long post

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utilitycaster · 3 years

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Wizard Breakdown Tracker, episode 139

I know not what the future holds, other than more warnings about how if you Wizard NPC too hard you will become a mentally fractured hive mind taken over by a purple bastard Emotions Beholder.

But enough about the eventual fate of Essek Thelyss. Let’s continue tracking the deteriorating mental state that proximity to the Mighty Nein induces in all wizards they meet, much as a changing electrical current induces magnetic fields.

Caleb Widogast, as a PC and member of the Mighty Nein, is not included on this list, even though he definitely is inducing all kinds of problems in himself and others.

Currently sidelined: the Zadash contingent of Pumat Sol and Oremid Hass.

Could an archmage do this? *gets one-shot murdered in a hotel room by the man whose soul she deliberately shattered*

Ludinus Da’leth: could an archmage do this? *probably causes the destruction of Molaesmyr, inserts himself into Empire wizard politics at the ground floor, gladly benefits from the Volstrucker program while paying lip service to the idea that it’s “bad” to Caleb at parties, fails to notice a familiar is spying on his espionage meeting*

Conclusion: still 0/10 because this man’s ability to give a shit about the consequences of his actions died with the city of Molaesmyr

Trent Ikithon: could an archmage do this? *gets left on read by the greatest threat to his power, who leaves for the arctic to save the world, steal paper, eat heroes’ feast, be bisexual, and fly*

Conclusion: still holding at 7/10. I have to wonder what he thinks Caleb is doing though. Like, he still can technically send messages with a decent chance of arrival so

Essek Thelyss: if we have been denied Dark Star because his “potential love interest” cast “dispel magic” to “prevent him from murdering the party while he was mind controlled” MY breakdown tracker is going to shoot up to like, 8 or something, but between the (ironically, extremely dry) soup jokes and the fact that he did not murder the party while mind controlled I think he’s probably in what the productivity articles I sometimes read at work in order to procrastinate refer to as a flow state.

Conclusion: honestly despite seeing horrors beyond comprehension? downgrading to a 7/10. His friends are by his side, they’ve used up a bunch of spells but they’re doing well on HP (and really, Fjord’s been doing decently well with cantrips although that is kind of the whole point of the warlock), and he had his “tis a far, far better thing I do” moment.

Blumentrio-1? Blumenduo? Blumenonion.: honestly I got nothing. Like I love them, but this is your regular reminder that Caleb’s dance with Astrid was less than a week ago in-game. Maybe Trent has stepped things up and is torturing her more than usual. Maybe he’s done nothing and the anxiety is torturing her more than usual. I think all we can say is that Astrid continues to probably have a very bad time, and Eadwulf continues to be a mystery wrapped in an enigma wrapped in some really great forearms.

Conclusion: ???/10. I mean I suspect they probably together average out to around a 6 but it’s anyone’s game.

Allura Vyesoren: could an archmage do this? *is in a healthy, loving relationship and remains a force for good within the world*

Conclusion: 2/10. Lady Kima, none of us deserve you.

Yussa Errenis: could an archmage do this? *gets sucked into an ancient evil city because he decided to send his consciousness into the ancient evil city*

Conclusion: he’s probably had time for a hot bath and a meal, so like, 3/10. We’ve established he does not learn from his mistakes so he’s just like “well that sucked.”

Known Gem Wizard Hotsauce Lutefisk: could an archmage do this? *gets trapped in a gem in a donjon in an astral dreadnought in a room in a demiplane of his own making for a millennium*

Conclusion: as previously established I’m pretty sure he’s already insane. Also I hope that this gem either eventually ends up somewhere even less likely to be found, or that some poor sap decides to grind it up for spell components or tattoo materials and suddenly a crazy old wizard pops out.

#critical role #critical role spoilers #wizard breakdown tracker #essek thelyss #yussa errenis #allura vyesoren #ludinus da'leth #trent ikithon #astrid #eadwulf #known gem wizard hotsauce lutefisk #Shadowgast

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utilitycaster · 3 years

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Wizard Breakdown Tracker, Episode 140

Welcome to the penultimate Wizard Breakdown Tracker: Four Resurrections and an Ass-Kicking.

When I first started this, I declared my intent was to do this until the comeuppance of Trent Ikithon. That may not happen, so, while I may revive it for hypothetical future one-shots centered specifically around the comeuppance of Trent Ikithon, this tracker will otherwise unsurprisingly end with the campaign next week, with the final statuses of all or at least most of these wizards. Also, for some advance notice, it will almost certainly be delayed until Sunday night.

But this week we are still primarily focusing on the wizard NPC of the Nein. Is he, technically speaking, counted among the Mighty Nein such that any breakdowns induced in him by the Mighty Nein have a self-inflicted component? Yes. Is this unique to Essek's situation, by any means? No.

As a reminder Caleb Widogast is a PC and therefore not included.

Currently sidelined: Ludinus Da'leth, Trent Ikithon, Astrid Beck, the Wulf of Wall Street, Pumat Sol, Oremid Hass, Allura Vyesoren, Yussa Errenis.

Lady Vess Derogna: there is a very high likelihood this may be my primary sendoff for her. So: to Vess. We hardly knew you, which is a little disappointing in that I love watching evil women who are committed in their indifference to anything but their goals, and I would personally watch a campaign that was literally just slowly dismantling the Cerberus Assembly provided there was also some combat and romance on the side, but Lucien is, indeed, the worst.

As the red eyes on her body have disappeared, it's gonna be a little awkward for the Nein to explain that no, she actually was a doomsday cultist to an entity they have since killed. [sidebar: my guess is the Magic Eye Book got swallowed by the city as well, which in unfortunate because I would have like to have watched the Dynasty see THAT particular sailboat. It's no "dunamancy existed and still worked fine, even better, for those who wanted to kill the gods", but it's still in Undercommon and I still expect it will put them in a very uncomfortable place.]

I do wonder what her afterlife has been like. The neutral evil outer planes do not seem like a great time, but honestly if I were her I'd probably be lying on the ground in Gehenna right now, looking up into the ash-strewn sky like "you know...I could have done better than Lucien, that fucking hack." Or perhaps "well, at least for me it was quick, and, blood from the eyes aside, at least I did not die a horrifying monstrosity."

Conclusion: 0/10. I haven't been tracking her breakdown otherwise, because, well, she's dead, but I have to imagine she's feeling some sense of vindication that Lucien is also dead and actually, her highly unethical modifications to him were still an upgrade by most standards. She's had three weeks to come to terms with her fate. Also I imagine any magical afterlife for the evil as completely lacking in such amenities as the catharsis of a breakdown.

Essek Thelyss: speaking of the catharsis of a breakdown!

If I may get serious, and I may because I have never actually cared for getting the readers' permission in my entire life and sure won't start now, what struck me about Essek is that there are many things that were implied he did not get much of - friendship, peace, an escape from the rigid confines of his society, people asking him about soup - but in many ways he has lived an immensely privileged life. Talented, powerful, free from want. Except he wanted more, because that's how people are.

I'm sure next week, and in the few following, amid whatever breaks and one-offs occur, (with some premature examinators writing them right now, even), there will be plenty of meta explaining what the Mighty Nein were really about, man. I will even probably definitely make some of them. And even as I make fun of those who are performing vivisections and calling them post mortems, it's not terribly hard to guess what we'll find. Redemption. Found Family Wait No But It's Different This Time. The complicated subtleties of morality across disparate cultures. Who You Are In The Dark. An extended metaphor of the underappreciated nature of utility casters.

But while all of those have truth to them, the story of the Mighty Nein, to me, is seven people-eight, now- being forced to answer one question: What if you actually got what you wanted, for once? What then?

More than anything, what Essek wanted was answers. He still wants them, though his priorities are shifting. He's gotten some answers already. He does not see himself as deserving. He might not, for many years. Perhaps ever.

And so when the people he does see as deserving want something - a relatively small thing, in the grand scheme, to want - and they are unable to get it, that is what breaks him.

Conclusion: let the poor man have a good cry in peace. fucking voyeurs.

Halas Lutagran: Oh? oh is it a long time to be trapped? Is it? Did the Mighty Nein free some souls from the time of the Calamity that had been trapped? for over a millennium? huh. interesting. I just think it's funny how they just did that? freed the souls of the mages? who had been trapped? for a long time?

#in case you were wondering the way to be funny on the internet is to say 2-4 things that are serious in a list and then 1 silly one #as demonstrated here.#the other one is to just be really mean #the third is to make references that mostly entertain yourself #critical role #critical role spoilers #wizard breakdown tracker #essek thelyss #vess derogna #known gem wizard hotsauce lutefisk #*kryn dynasty voice* like the back of a volkswagen?

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utilitycaster · 3 years

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Wizard Breakdown Tracker, Episode 138

I think it is easy to forget that literally every episode that aired in the year of Our Common Era, 2021, has taken place over the span of *Spurt voice* eleven days. Well. It has. And, indeed, the last seven episodes have covered roughly two days.

The reason this is only about wizard NPCs is because they serve as a sort of audience surrogate in that they are nerds who don't go outside, vs. D&D PCs who see more shit in two to eleven days than most people would see in a lifetime; case in point, Essek's current state of shock. This is also making it very hard to check in with the other wizards. But also this is not about accuracy, even though I am usually right about everything. This is about...honestly I'm not sure, other than wizards.

What I'm trying to say is:

Caleb Widogast is a PC, not an NPC, and is not included in these strange statistics*.

Currently sidelined: Pumat Sol, Oremid Hass, Ludinus Da'leth, Astrid Beck, E_dwulf Grieve

Obligatory self-indulgent Vess Derogna song parody: Tomb....takers, killed you in your room, they’ll end the world soon but hey/you cult wizard, lost in a blizzard, whatever you’ve done, well, murdered, you’ll stay

Trent Ikithon: I am 100% serious that while I have made Narrative Sense In Actual Play Media in the rock on which I will cast my Temple of the Gods, if the final boss is Trent riding on Uk'otoa...I won't be mad. Like does it seem tonally off? Yes; Critical Role is not humorless high fantasy by any means** but they are not actively trying to seem like something that should be airbrushed on a van, usually. But will it be pretty awesome? Yeah.

Trent on the other hand is pretty fucking mad, presumably, because Caleb continues to leave him on read and also picked up a little something called Mind Blank, which is actually useful and not in fact No Thoughts Head Empty. With that said I don't think it's increased; I think we're just at a steady simmer.

Conclusion: 7/10.

Essek Thelyss: Okay I am a dabbler in both cosmic horror and mathematics; I enjoy many elements of both but am an expert in neither. But if I may drop the jokes for a second, how incredible is it that in this alien setting of a city that is an unwitting and unwilling amalgam of consciousnesses, with all the trappings of classic cosmic horror, two people decided to take a scientific risk with things seen as forbidden or foreign by their respective cultures...and won.

I don't know what will befall Essek and he's clearly still having a pretty rough time of it, even though unlike Caduceus I don't think he was brought to the brink of profanity again, yet; but no matter what happens at least he'll have the nat 20 of instant long rest. No matter what happens...he was right about dunamancy. Fucking ironic how much potential the dynasty is wasting, really.

With that said he does have a red eye now even though all he (and, to be fair, Fjord, Veth, and Caduceus as well) did was fight off an eldritch abomination without rolling what must have been like a 20 Wisdom save DC. Like, he (and Fjord, Veth, and Caduceus) do not deserve this. You think this man has a positive wisdom score? In this economy? (actually, he might, I say, looking at Caleb 'Wisdom Ostensibly 16' Widogast).

Conclusion: keeping him at 8/10. It's funny because he is fully on an emotional roller coaster but it's averaging out to about an 8/10 each time; it's just that he's constantly beset by horrors beyond imagination and really terrible rolls but also incredible validation of his beliefs that had so long been ignored. The man's mental state is basically a sine wave, which interestingly enough is itself influencing his mental state.***

Yussa Errenis: The Prodigal Most Interesting Man in Exandria returneth! Wensforth, play Freedom! 836 PD. You know, he should probably feel a little bit of shame, because he should know better, but also he probably does not. Anyway please enjoy the lines I had for Yussa while he was trapped in Cognouza that I did not ultimately use:

aha no don’t get your consciousness sucked into an ancient city you’re so sexy

Here am I floating in an ancient and terrible world-devouring city/far out in the planes/Threshold crests are blue and there’s nothing I can do

Making bad choices and joining the voices it’s...YUSSA ERRENIS

Conclusion: I'm going to say 6/10 but rapidly decreasing. Also Wensforth has had several days to clean the tower...maybe he just won't tell Yussa? He probably will though.

Allura Vyesoren: she's going to facepalm so long that Kima starts timing it, isn't she. She's going to get a series of messages like "hey so the Mighty Nein seem to be doing well! they freed me from the city which sucked me in like some spicy ramen when I did an astral projection...also something happened in my tower?" She's going to just stare out the window for a long moment. She is going to ask herself, much as I have many a time, what the fuck is in the water in Wildemount.

Conclusion: 3/10. Hey, at least she got some news on the Mighty Nein and the city!

Known Gem Wizard Hotsauce Lutefisk: consider: after over 35 years, give or take, in your own perception of time, trapped in a gem, you finally come across some people. Consider that one of them apparently can't resist a big shiny wizard trap. Now consider that this guy went into your +1 Demiplane of Wizard Murdering AND got his mind fully schlorped by Aeorians and yet you are still, inconceivably, stuck in this fucking gem. This is where he draws the line? At a teensy little bodily possession? What the fuck dude.

Conclusion: I'm pretty sure he's already a few large handfuls of iron filings short of a component pouch (which is to say, full up on the batshit) already but this cannot be helping.

*this will be the first but probably not the last cosmic horror and/or math joke because I actually forgot to make cat jokes last night, so thoroughly did the Nein demolish Cree. Speaking of Cree's fate...call that a Furrier Transform.

**high fantasy is a complicated distinction and the wikipedia page includes Discworld which does not seem right to me; it also includes the Belgariad, a series for which I have great fondness having inhaled the first three books while sick in bed as a fourteen year old and having reread several times, but which is explicitly written by a guy who was like what if I made something as formulaic as possible but also literally everyone is either super sarcastic or a huge moron but anyway imo High Fantasy is actually frequently fucking hilarious and a sign of the skill of the creator(s) is whether it's hilarious by accident or on purpose.

***something something Heisenberg uncertainty principle. I had a joke here but it got very convoluted and that is actually not a pun although if you understand why it could be a pun, good work.

#critical role #critical role spoilers #wizard breakdown tracker #trent ikithon #essek thelyss #yussa errenis #allura vyesoren #known gem wizard hotsauce lutefisk #your music this week was: moon river by henry mancini; freedom 1990 by george michael; and space oddity by david bowie

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utilitycaster · 3 years

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Speaking of Halas, it was briefly brought up in the most recent episode that he might've been digging around in the ruins of Aeor some time before he got stuck in the gem, and to me it seems pretty likely: the first thing they found of his other than the Happy Fun Ball itself was some winter weather gear stashed separately (I think) from the rest of the pocket-dimension-thing, which may not have been an intentional hint to Aeor but is interesting nonetheless; what do you think?

In episode 125 he said he hadn’t gone; granted he’s not exactly a trustworthy guy but I don’t see a good reason to lie about this and he did provide what information he knew. I do think there’s a chance he had considered it and may have been preparing, but I don’t think he necessarily went himself. It’s not totally clear how long after Aeor’s fall Halas lived, since he was living in the midst of the calamity, the timeline of which is vague.

I have two separate alternate possible answers:

1. The boring and practical one: he lived on a flying city that at least spent some time floating over what is modern-day Zemni Fields, ie, high altitude and in a cooler region of the world.

2. I think there’s sometimes a hesitancy to incorporate fourth-wall/meta information in theories, but in actual play I think the best theories often at least take it under consideration (and the worst often deliberately do not). We know that Matt did not initially intend the Folding Halls of Halas to stay with the party, but Twiggy gave it to them. We know Matt incorporated the permaheart into the build when the party was frustrated during the Angel of Irons arc and had indicated they were going to see Yussa, and additionally included the notes that became Widogast’s Transmogrification, but had Twiggy kept the ball, those would not be closed-off avenues - they would just be in different places. The fundamental secret of DM-ing is that the DM is frantically shifting the set pieces around from time to time based on what the players want or need while making it seem like consistent, real scenery, and Matt is very good at doing this in game but he’s pretty honest out-of-game that he does it.

So the cold-weather gear in episode 45 very well might have been meant, at the time, as a hint for when the Aeor shoe dropped that Halas could be a resource,. But in episode 45, I’m sure that while Matt had outlined the character of Essek Thelyss he couldn’t have predicted the Mighty Nein could reliably count on him, or the Dynasty at all, when they finally got to Aeor. He didn’t know how exactly the Aeor arc would happen nor precisely when. So any theories I have need to incorporate the simple fact that sometimes, Chekhov’s Gun shows up in episode 45 and actually doesn’t really mean anything, because the first act was assuming a very different second act and the use of the Chekhov’s Gun metaphor when discussing actual play is a very tricky thing. Which is to all say: the cold weather clothes were just a *Tim Curry voice* Red. Herring.

I already got pretty off topic above (something something Clue The Movie jokes something something “too late”) but I wanted to add one more thing which is that Halas interests me less as any sort of plot hook or resource, even though he could indeed become one if someone gets possessed, or if Yussa is rescued and decides to go 0 for 3 on resisting wizardly temptation, and more so as worldbuilding. I can only explain this by bringing up the Neal Stephenson book The Diamond Age, a post-cyberpunk classic I love very very much. It famously opens with a chapter describing an almost ridiculously stereotypical tough guy loner fringes of society archetypal character of the cyberpunk genre, follows him as one of a few early viewpoint characters, and then (minor spoilers, but not really) he gets killed within the first 50 pages. The point of that exercise is to indicate that this is post-cyberpunk instead and the story isn’t about him.

To me, Halas is in a way, playing a similar role. He’s a powerful mage involved in politics, some form of immoral or amoral, doing all kinds of necromancy and pursuing immortality...and he’s literally crystalized and stagnant. I mean, it’s not terribly subtle - the previous campaign ended with the defeat of Vecna, god of being a wizard who does immortality shenanigans.

I don’t, to be fair, know if this is deliberate, but we’re currently in a story where elements of the Age of Arcanum may come back depending on what goes down in Aeor (Devexian being merely one of many potential hooks/causes) and the impact it might have on the arcane is fascinating, and Halas helps set that stage.

#the only thing that will make me want C3 to not be in Issylra is if it's EVEN MORE FOCUSED ON WIZARD STUFF #critical role #long post #meta #known gem wizard hotsauce lutefisk #Anonymous

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utilitycaster · 3 years

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Wizard Breakdown Tracker, #135

Each week I think “man it would have been cool if I had thought of this idea, in which I make jokes about how stressed out the wizard NPCs are, during, you know, the Vergesson heist or something when we were interacting with more than one wizard NPC instead of during a dungeon crawl with only one wizard NPC, emphasis on crawl” but you know what, I persevere, because where else am I going to put song parodies about the death of Vess Derogna that are literally only funny to me? Twitter?

Anyway while I am personally team Jester, in that the faster Lucien is simultaneously disintegrated, run through in the chest with both a vestige and a holy avenger, shot through the heart (and Veth’s to blame), beheaded with a hand axe, banished, punched in the face, and sent into a black hole the better, the party has other plans. Thanks to the long rest though it has been about 12 hours, plus the 4-ish from last week, so I guess we’ll check in with a few of our other wizard friends as well.

As a reminder Caleb Widogast is a PC and thus excluded from this list.

Currently sidelined

Presumably having a good day: Pumat Sol (blissfully unaware of all of this); Allura Vyesoren (saint-like patience and a wealth of experience with disaster adventuring parties; at least this one has a cleric at more than 0.33 FTE, a wizard, and some lesbians), Ludinus Da’leth (this miserable pile of power plays wakes up every morning and is like Isn’t it Grand to be head of the evil wizard council and no one realizes I probably destroyed the first non-drow elven civilization on the continent to arise after the calamity! Fetch me more pastries!).

No idea but here’s hoping he found the cat portion of ScryTube: Oremid Hass

Lady DeRogna, taken off the scene, sorry that your murder happened while off-screen.

Trent Ikithon: I’ve established that I think the only real things that can damage Trent emotionally are Caleb paying too much attention to him so as to destroy his standing within the empire, or else Caleb ignoring him. Honestly if Trent would not continue to torture students and spread propaganda if left unchecked I think he could be slowly murdered solely through Caleb expressing apathy. So despite the amulets of nondetection I like to imagine that somehow, somewhere, Trent felt Caleb reaffirm to Essek that his top priority is still stopping the city from returning, not Trent, and it necrotized just a little bit more of his liver.

Conclusion: 7/10. I went to the OG evil mageocracy and no one knew who you were.

Essek Thelyss: Well on the one hand he’s still flirting but on the other imagine spending a literal century being like “what if we’re wrong about how we approach the fundamental basis for our society” and he just got proved right. I have to imagine he’s got that kind of stress where suddenly everything becomes dead calm and also this explains why he unnecessarily cast a 3rd level spell, which he knows could in theory cause him to lose all his hair, to impress a boy. I didn’t even get into the conversations he had with Caleb, the bad dreams and eyeballs, Fjord teasing him, Yasha being like “ALRIGHT ALREADY”, the horrible Aeorian creatures, the fact that robots might be back(?) or his ongoing terror that the Assembly is after him!

Conclusion: 8/10 but he’s like, kind of having a good time. Essek is in all ways but physical in a Hawaiian shirt right now drinking a Mai Tai and going Nothing Matters; I presume he will have a full breakdown following the boss battle and honestly he deserves it.

Astrid Beck: Others have already established the parallels between Essek and Astrid but honestly I want to highlight it because really, on the one hand we have Essek, whose world is crashing around him because he was right all along and is in terrible immediate danger but surrounded by friends, and on the other we have Astrid, whose world is crashing around her because she was wrong all along and she’s probably not in immediate danger but Eadwulf is the only person she can trust and we don’t know all the details about that either.

Conclusion: 8/10 but in the bad way, not Essek’s kind of fun way.

Wulfpupy:

Conclusion: 3/10. You know that tiktok with the blonde woman with glasses who has a lot of highlighter on her nose who talks about how sometimes if you have guy friends they will say something deeply fucked up and you’ll be like “oh my god do we unpack this right now” and then you look over at them and the only thing in their mind are the lyrics to Kokomo? That’s Wulf. He will activate the second Caleb comes back in town or Astrid actually falls apart but until then he is on Island Time.

Yussa Errenis: I wonder if there’s a small part of Yussa that is part of the city’s awareness and, moreover, can see what Beau and Caleb at least are doing, and he’s like “I’m so simultaneously proud and impatient, also we live in a world that does not have IV fluids so like, hopefully my body still exists in some kind of functioning state when I am rescued” (note: did I google “how were coma patients kept alive in olden times” for this? Perhaps.) Anyway if he is aware he’s also just like, watching all this like “I WILL GET YOU SO MUCH PAPER OH MY GOD CAN YOU JUST KISS THE OTHER WIZARD SAVE ME FROM THE EVIL HIVEMIND CITY.”

Conclusion: I mean still infinity/10, he is still trapped in the city of madness and also if he does have a small part of his mind that is sane and able to observe the material plane he also is aware that Trent and the Volstruckers broke into his tower.

Known Gem Wizard Hotsauce Lutefisk: I know, I know, weird that I brought him up. However consider: Yussa’s wizard tower now contains two wizards in suspended animation, their consciousnesses trapped in eldritch astral sea-related spaces. This is incredibly funny to me. We’re in a real Old Lady who swallowed a fly scenario except it’s centuries-old wizards getting sucked into traps because of their own hubris. The reason why mageocracies no longer exist isn’t the lack of magical knowledge or even because power corrupts absolutely, it’s because literally just put some lightly fried forbidden knowledge under a box with a stick propping it up, add your parody of Long-Term Nuclear Waste Warnings above it, and a wizard will be like “that sign won’t stop me because I CAN read and what’s more I’m better at reading than you are!” And then they get trapped in a box.

Conclusion: what is a breakdown tracker to a man whose mind has been stuck in a gem for, from his perspective, at minimum about 35 years?

#critical role #critical role spoilers #wizard breakdown tracker #shadowgast #honestly i want shenanigans that rival any post-dragon vm shenanigans after aeor and i want essek to have a starring role #sorry percy i want a BLACK HOLE in the hot tub #your music this week was lady madonna by the beatles and kokomo by the beach boys #i swear i am a millennial i just spent a lot of formative time in the car with my boomer parents listening to the oldies station

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utilitycaster · 3 years

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Wizard breakdown tracker week 2: episode 132

Welcome again to the post in which I assess how close the various wizard NPCs of Exandria are to Losing It, an exercise in reminding me that though things may seem dark now, one day Trent Ikithon will be brought to justice, which is the fun euphemism I have for “zero hit points and also on fire”.

I suspect we’re really only going to see Essek for a while such that this may eventually become a space for real thoughts on Essek, wildly speculative thoughts on the volstrucker wizards, Allura/Kima domestic fluff, and elaborate jokes about Eadwulf’s name and Yussa’s predicament, but I am committed.

As a reminder: Caleb Widogast is not eligible due to being a PC. Wizard NPCs for whom I have no updates, whether it’s because they have not appeared recently or simply because I don’t find them interesting enough; my deepest apologies to the Oremid Hass stans.

Someone in my notes from last week’s post asked where Known Gem Wizard Hotsauce Lutefisk was. The answer is that he is in a gem. Hope this helps.

Archmage of Antiquities Lady Vess DeRogna is still dead.

Ludinus Da’leth: with Yussa (hopefully temporarily) out of the running he’s suddenly feeling more confident in his chances at winning Wildemount’s Least Fucks Given competition but doesn’t know why, and with Jester in the north a sudden sense of peace has come upon him.

Conclusion: 0/10. He’s taking a nap in his tower in a sunbeam like an evil cat as we speak.

Trent Ikithon: It’s only been a day or so since Caleb delivered what is truly probably the sickest burn he’s ever experienced; this man probably doesn’t care about 99% of what people say to him but Caleb saying he’s not the biggest thing on his mind? That’s gonna hit. Also presumably the trail went cold after Nicodranas, in more ways than one.

Conclusion: 5/10 and simmering; by the time the Nein return to civilization he should be about ready to explode.

Essek Thelyss: While it’s only been a few hours honestly I think he’s already doing better. He’s in a weird freezing ruin and there was a fight with another one coming, but he’s being useful! He’s been given trust and friends! He got to show off a lot of very cool spellcasting! Also have you ever been super anxious and your friends, rather than trying to talk through anything, are just incredibly fucking weird to the point where it takes your mind off things because what is happening even? That’s the mood. Oh and also, he may still be worried about the Assembly bearing down on him but I have to imagine Yasha’s display of swordcraft is helping.

Conclusion: 7/10. To paraphrase Caduceus there’s a certain baseline of happiness when you’re in a freezing ruin full of brown mold, but the distraction is welcome.

Astrid Beck: It’s tough that she’s offscreen because like, her mental state is going to be governed heavily by Trent’s but specifically if he seems on to her. Also while my bets are against the volstrucker trying to teleport into the ruins of Aeor she’s probably going to be in a worse state if she might have to face Caleb again.

Conclusion: holding at 8/10 until further notice.

*Black Francis voice* I believe in Mr. Eadwulf Grieve: *sits backwards on chair* Look, son/daughter/child, we all at some point in our lives project a lot of things on to a mysterious but intriguing NPC. Your Verins; your Urayas; your Vandrans. Mine? Well, mine is a wizard whose name we don’t entirely know how to spell and who we mostly know is strong and likes the Raven Queen and was not exactly the third wheel we long believed him to be. Anyway, I like to imagine Eadwulf as a calming presence, with Astrid the more-high-strung leader, albeit calming presence because he immediately gets drunk after stressful situations.

Conclusion: I’m going to say 4/10. I think he’s one of those people who’s like, super smart but also when the problem is not directly in front of him he’s like well nothing to be done now.

Pumat Sol: Much as I love him, no updates for now and he will probably be moved to the “not recently seen” group. I hope a heavily disguised Yeza has stopped by though for more top toys after one of the mobsters got really into it.

Conclusion: 1/10, respectfully.

Allura Vyesoren: She is assuming at this point no news is good news, which will change after a few days, but also Lady Kima keeps busting in with a sword the size of herself yelling “I JUDGE THEE, MAGICIAN”

Conclusion: holding at 3/10.

Yussa Errenis: WE BUILT THIS CITY! WE BUILT THIS CITY ON WIZARD’S SOULS!

Congrats on the gender, sorry about...you know.

Conclusion: to ℵ-null and ℵ-null and beyond/10. In related news I am submitting a bug reports to both Tumblr and Google Docs for not accounting for the outlier formatting case of Cardinality Georg.

#as mentioned elsewhere nothing is funnier than just calling Ikithon Tront #but puns on other wizards' names are very funny #critical role #critical role spoilers #wizard breakdown tracker #your music references this week were Mr. Grieves by the Pixies and We Built This City by Jefferson Starship

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utilitycaster · 3 years

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Wizard Breakdown Tracker, episode 137

I was, as is nearly always true, correct last week in that we have not covered much more time and therefore this is still really just an Essek Breakdown Tracker (with honorary Yussa). I'm hoping that next week they will destroy Cree and buy themselves enough time to at least heroes feast and rest up, if not get a proper night's sleep in what is apparently the intestines of the Somnovem ward, and I can speculate again on some of the other wizards.

As a reminder, Caleb Widogast is a PC, not an NPC, and therefore ineligible for this.

Currently sidelined: Allura, Pumat, Trint, Astrid, Eadwulf, Ludinus, Oremid, Known Gem Wizard Hotsauce Lutefisk, and Lady Vess DeRogna who's presumably looking at this from the afterlife and just thinking "are you fucking kidding me? this could have been me, being screamed at by horrors beyond comprehension, if the person whose soul I smashed like a cheap beer bottle had the common decency to remain as such."

Essek Thelyss: Essek has been keeping a low profile because of the restrictions of actual play, namely Matt is too busy making nightmare noises with his own mouth, but I in-game, I think that he's just intentionally pretending the last couple of hours did not happen because there are more pressing issues now. As a result he is coming off as slightly bored, which I'm into.

Here's what we do know: Essek is somewhat injured, has a great dex score, has a GREAT intelligence score, might be using cantrips to flirt but is definitely using them to stop people from screaming, cast some extremely sexy lightning, and should be paired up with Veth more frequently because that was really funny. He is probably going to have to counterspell a cat really soon. You know. Normal things.

You know how if you've been having a bad mental health time, and you finally are able to drag yourself out to something, but it's like, a friend of a friend's experimental modern dance, or a movie you didn't particularly care to see, and you're like "I'm doing it! I'm out of the house, like a normal person! This is good!" but also the thing you are doing is not particularly enjoyable. But you're just like "you know what? I peeled myself off the couch for this and put on a clean shirt, and I guess it is happening to me, or at me, or around me, and I suppose that is some small victory, and I hope this will be relatable to people on the internet as an experience one day."

This is Essek. Is the Astral Sea Lovecraftian Nightmare Science Museum a great time? No. Is it a step up from several straight weeks of alternate guilt and panic attacks at the outpost? Maybe not! But it sure is a step somewhere, and that, my friends, is possibly a victory.

Conclusion: downgrading him back to 8/10 on the grounds that he seems like the kind of person who would be like "you know what? I could be in endless torment here and I am not." But also literally the purpose of cosmic horror is to jack up your breakdown levels so I doubt he (or anyone) is getting much further down than that.

Yussa Errenis: As mentioned, heads turning into eyeballs in a fantasy setting is totally chill for me. Having your personality subsumed into a fractured insane hive mind such that death is welcomed as a release, not so much. The reason I hate zombie movies isn’t gore. I can look at cracked skulls full of breached blood-brain barrier all day. The reason is that this monster wears the face of someone you love, but is just a mindless vessel of hunger who does not recognize you in turn.

MAN THIS INSTALLMENT GOT KIND OF DARK AND I DID NOT MEAN FOR THAT TO HAPPEN.

Anyway my kind of joking statements about Yussa may hold a bit of water, but there is a bright side. Per the Astral Projection spell, if Yussa dies in the city and the silver thread tethering him to the material plane is intact he wakes up in real life, which would be nice, but also, no guarantees.

Should Yussa survive and return to the material plane I think it would be great if, when the Mighty Nein go back to talk to him again after this arc, he's like "yeah I could see you playing the worst ever game of What Time is it Mr. Fox in the city, what a poor decision" and they're like "poor decisions you say?"

Conclusion: Praesidius Junction J̵͚̔ų̷̣̀ṇ̷̡̃c̶̯͝t̶̡͝î̴̟̈́ŏ̶̟̑n̵̻͆̎ ̶̢͚̔͘j̴̰͚̅u̵̺͊̈́n̵̬̫͊c̵̯̈́̅t̵̜͔͘í̵̦̻̎ȍ̵̖̔n̷̲̬͛̒j̴͔̿́u̶̘̠̓n̷̰̕c̷̡̙͝t̶̨̅̋ỉ̸̗͉͠o̷̯͑͋n̶̰̽̒ HELP HELP HELP [high pitched Matt scream]/10

#wow cursed text messes with your formatting huh #critical role #critical role spoilers #wizard breakdown tracker #what time is it mr. fox? AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH

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utilitycaster · 3 years

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Wizard Breakdown Tracker, #134

I’m going to be real with you: on the one hand I am, like Sam Riegel, committed to this goddamn bit about how the Mighty Nein are disrupting the lives, in one way or another, of every wizard NPC they’ve ever met. On the other this episode only covered about 3-4 or so hours in real time, which coincidentally is about how much sleep I got Wednesday night as my immune system took it upon itself to kill some spike proteins that it was tricked into making itself with fire. And so with those factors in mind this is going to be a relatively brief installment. Next week I will likely muse on the mental states of at least Yussa and Trent, probably Allura because I love her, and perhaps Two of the Three Morally Ambiguous Wizard Love Interests associated with Mr. Caleb “Bisexual Maelstrom” Widogast but tonight, we look only to the third. Essek Thelyss, take the stage.

As a reminder Mr. Caleb “Bisexual Maelstrom” Widogast is disqualified for being a wizard PC but if you are interested in his mental state I assure you there is information canonical, meta, and fanfictional to be had.

Currently sidelined: Oremid Hass, Known Gem Wizard Hotsauce Lutefisk, Pumat Sol, Ludinus Da’leth, Yussa Errenis (in more ways than one), Trent Ikithon, Allura Vyesoren, Astrid Beck, Eadwulf Grieve, and whatever wizards you’re thinking about from the Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount, the Tal’Dorei Guide, or vague asides in that one episode that one time.

Assembly member in a locket? That’s some Dead-Ass Wizard

Essek Thelyss: Much like *gestures vaguely at fandom* I was admittedly taken in by the demure dual admissions of soup-enjoyment and saying-up-in-the-tower-enjoyment as well as the conversation with Caleb last week, and did sort of wash over the fact that last week ended with Essek seeing Fjord make a brutal hail-Melora pass that is ultimately going to come back to him (that is, Essek) in terms of “who is technically in command of the Kryn rangers and verbally gave the order to Dagen.” And then in short order here is Essek’s night and/or morning: spat out on the ground from the tower, 60% of the Takers die immediately, Lucien says “fuck” and teleports out, rocks fall, nobody dies. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I owe no small part of my own mental health to long rests and soup, but one cannot live on long rests and soup alone.

This week things got pretty rough and (presumably) Essek is going Back to Bed Trance and that’s fucking valid. He is feeling some insecurity over the fact that as essentially Matthew Mercer’s character, he is subject to the DM PC Dice Curse* and can’t dispel magic his way out of a paper bag; he has experienced still more of the Full Chaos of the Mighty Nein including their adoption of a malfunctioning robot and messing around a mausoleum, and then he saw Caleb, the person I have to assume he trusts the most, be like “well I see we have a potentially lethal electrical security system. If I die please pull me out anyway LET’S GO.” As we have learned Essek is more of an academic/political type, not so much a combat/adventuring wizard and I think he’s experiencing a certain level of shock. And of course we have the words out of his own mouth: “me neither.”

That said his gravity sinkhole did work pretty well! and it’s only been a few hours for him too, and it’s safe for the whole party to take a rest which has got to be some comfort given that the whole party includes the people who can heal him.

Conclusion: 6/10. Stress levels are rising but we are not yet at the drop of this particular emotional rollercoaster. Here’s hoping he gets in a good conversation while taking watch or something next week.

*I don’t really believe in dice curses but like...oh, honey.

#your music this evening was a not-so-stealthy reference to the modern major general's song from pirates of penzance by gilbert & sullivan #and of course W.A.P.#i will never not make vess derogna is dead jokes just be prepared for that #if I used the term hail mary pass incorrectly: I do not care. football is something they made up to sell nachos.#shadowgast #my ship tag logic makes sense and is available upon request #anyway i need a long rest and some soup. good night.#critical role #critical role spoilers #wizard breakdown tracker

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utilitycaster · 3 years

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Wizard Breakdown Tracker #3, episode 133

Greetings and salutations to the exercise I have set upon myself, which is to say deciding the relative mental stability of Wizard NPCs who have been subjected to the Mighty Nein. My intent is to do this at least until Trent Ikithon has fucked off this mortal coil and/or been thoroughly deposed and humiliated.

As a reminder Caleb Widogast is a member of the Mighty Nein and a PC and therefore excluded from these calculations. Wizards who haven’t been seen or heard from lately and about whom I don’t have anything funny to say about will not get a full blurb, but as they re-enter the main narrative so will they re-enter the list. Currently, this is the Essek Thelyss Show ft. Trent and the Volstruckers with guest appearances by Yussa and Allura.

Currently sidelined: Oremid Hass, Known Gem Wizard Hotsauce Lutefisk (I am going to reuse this stupid joke name for him until it doesn’t make me laugh at my own joke anymore, which will probably be never), Pumat Sol (who I hope is having a great day), Ludinus Da’leth (who I hope is not but in true laissez-faire rat bastard form, probably is).

Vess D wasn’t there/morning time in Eiselcross or at her job or anywhere/they snuck in and took her life/and we noticed that her spellbook’s gone and that she’s covered in red eyes.

Trent Ikithon: Okay with the caveat that it’s been a very long time since I saw the entire movie and our only update is Artagan taking a moment from his busy schedule of traveling the globe in the direction of the sun such that he is always technically day-drinking to tell Jester that Trent’s biding his time, I’m getting real Disney Hunchback of Notre Dame Frollo vibes. Except instead of Catholicism and lust, it’s nationalism and an unquenchable thirst for power and control, and also he does not feel guilty in the slightest. He’s not at Hellfire levels yet but he will get there and I am slightly disappointed that due to the constraints of a D&D game we do not get an even more fucked up version of the song Hellfire.

Conclusion: 6/10. Slowly stepping it up. Also here’s the great thing: while we know Caleb is going to come after him next, he doesn’t, and the Nein didn’t tell any world governments about the threat of the city unless you count the Tal’Dorei Council via Allura, which means for all intents and purposes they just disappeared into Eiselcross...except Trent also knows Caleb disappeared for five or six years once before and reports of his death were greatly exaggerated. If Caleb weren’t dedicated to the noble goal of ending the Volstrucker program ASAP, he could just chill for a year or so and then pull a really stellar Surprise Bitch move and maybe just get Trent’s heart to explode.

Essek Thelyss: He got a good night’s trance and weird physical affection from a giant ape Caleb and he was healed by Caduceus and he had a serious conversation with the first true peer and one of the first friends he’s ever known about how high-level wizardry may not necessarily corrupt absolutely. And, of course, soup. I mean they are about to head into a terrible battle but he’s at full health and spells and he’s a valued member of the team and his friends love him SO MUCH.

Conclusion: 5/10. There is a distinction between a breakdown and being in a very high pressure situation, and he got some nice moments of respite this week. With that said do I think that post-battle, should he survive (HE BETTER) a whole lot of anxiety will come crashing back? Yeah.

Astrid Beck: With Trent in a holding pattern he’s got to be turning up the mind games on her; I have to imagine he suspects and then she suspects that he suspects and it’s a whole mess, but I’ve said that already. But also just like, in general, I think her speech to Caleb back when he first contacted her was genuine in many ways and specifically I think she was likely to have been Trent’s New Golden Child and then suddenly that got yanked out from under her for still more mind games; I think her difference in demeanor between that meeting and the dinner was partially Trent being present, but partially her having realized in the interim that she will likely never have anything to show for two decades of pain and doing terrible things and nonstop bullshit.

Conclusion: still keeping her at 8/10 until further notice but like. Astrid’s having a bad time.

Um actually Eadwulf is the monster? The hero’s name is Grendel: Okay meanwhile here’s my totally unsupported Eadwulf headcanon of this week which is that he meanwhile always knew he was not the favorite and probably never would be and while I doubt he ever had particularly noble goals I would not be surprised if he had an exit strategy. Personally I hope he tries card-counting in that casino in Ank’harel and gets kicked out posthaste and then tries being a wizard/some kind of divine caster multiclass in Vasselheim and also gets kicked out but finally becomes like an old-school hermit figure somewhere in the woods of Issylra and Campaign 3′s party runs into him.

Conclusion: also keeping him at 4/10 until further notice.

Allura Vyesoren: It’s time to acknowledge that this episode covered a span of like...8 hours? And presuming the Nein are sort of trying to keep a normal sleep schedule, maybe, and using a comparison of Eiselcross being at a comparable time zone to say, Nicodranas, and it’s 5 hours into the night for them, and we know that around mid-day for Nicodranas was early morning for Emon...honestly she’s probably relaxing with a glass of wine. Unless Wensforth contacted her.

Conclusion: I’m going to let Allura have a good day. She’s at 2/10 because the threat of Aeor will be in the back of her mind but also she’s seen a bunch of idiots kill dragons and Vecna and they didn’t even have a wizard.

Yussa Errenis: Experiencing a great disturbance in the Astral Sea, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and then just like, kept doing that.

Conclusion: I decided to really go all out last week on the infinity jokes and left myself nothing to go on, huh. Anyway this breakdown goes to 11 (out of 10).

#me looking at the pitiful handful of non-STEM courses I took in college: is this a potential source of referential internet jokes?#critical role #critical role spoilers #wizard breakdown tracker #your musical references were no body no crime by Taylor Swift ft. Haim and obviously Hellfire from The Hunchback of Notre Dame #which is a weird pairing tbh

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utilitycaster · 3 years

Text

Wizard Breakdown Tracker, #136

Yet again we have had an episode covering a remarkably short span of time - perhaps our shortest yet, as honestly this might have covered under an hour, in-world. So once again I cannot really vamp about what most of the NPC wizards are doing, because honestly I am pretty sure Eadwulf might have just been doing push-ups the entire span of this episode. So our eyes turn, pun intended, to the man of the hour, the drow trapped on an emotional rollercoaster only partially of his own making, Shadowhand Essek Thelyss, and pretty much everyone else can wait. Probably for a couple of weeks since I suspect next week will similarly not cover much time.

As a reminder, Caleb Widogast is a PC, not an NPC, and is also, currently, a sheep.

Currently sidelined: Allura, Pumat, Trönt, Astrid, Eadwulf, Ludinus, Oremid, Known Gem Wizard Hotsauce Lutefisk (this is still funny to me and I have learned that the audience one must cater to is always one's self), and the body of Vess Derogna which to be perfectly honest was probably unceremoniously dumped somewhere in Aeor, which is going to make this either way more awkward, or way less. That said the Mighty Nein's next task is "deal with Ikithon" so it's not like they're going to avoid murdering Assembly members.

Essek Thelyss: I observed that there were four major themes among the tags in my activity from this past episode:

I want to punch Lucien so much

I want the wizards to kiss so much

ha! tiny Veth on a sheep! the water elemental has titties!

In my opinion there is too much going on

These are all very correct opinions to hold and Essek is currently, if I may understate the situation, experiencing the last one. And also probably some variation of the first two. Probably not the third.

Within this one hour, at most, span, which I should note immediately follows his discovery that the Aeorians were excellent at dunamancy and did not appear to give a shit about the Luxon in the bargain, he has learned that Caleb and Beau have some abilities based on those eyes; that the cranky immortal weasel that sits on Jester's shoulder is actually her shapeshifted archfey god; that time travel specifically tailored to do the exact thing he wants to do is not only real but also seems to require the combination of his own expertise and the expertise of his potential love interest who also wants time travel for the same reasons; that Jester is fully aware of his flirting, thinks it's great, and got an answer from Caleb that he (Essek) is not privy too specifically thanks to eyeball powers; and that there are still a whole bunch of monsters after them although they might have all killed each other. He has taken 36 points of psychic damage, has been carried by a flying Caduceus, has been grappled by a water elemental, is probably sopping wet, and now he is in the Astral Sea and what's more he's probably going to be at the front of the pack, because he is a high-level wizard and Caleb is a sheep with intelligence 2 for the moment, unless Tiny Veth decides to bonus action dash*.

This is a lot, and I think the sheer nonstop nature of all of this has punched through the cheerful nihilism I predicted last week, and I am fairly sure the main thing getting him through this is that first, tis a far far better thing, better than he has ever done; and also he was right about the Luxon.

Conclusion: 9/10. I was going to say this is just a countdown to when Essek can finally scream into Caleb's shoulder for an unspecified amount of time but actually Essek seems like the kind of person to lie face down on the floor, also for an unspecified amount of time. Either way it is going to be well-earned.

Yussa Errenis: Again, I find it enjoyable to think that a tiny part of Yussa that cannot communicate meaningfully with Jester's sending or do anything really does still exist within the insanity, watching from the inside and psychically face-palming, which is rich coming from Mr. What does THIS button do. Anyway I hope a tiny surge of hope has arrived, as the party finally enters the astral plane and can hopefully do something.

Conclusion: I already made my Cantorian infinity joke very early on and while I can't vamp about the Dwendalian wizards I can about that, namely, did anyone else read the Number Devil? I think it was originally written in German but I read the English translated edition, and it was about like, basic number theory, geared towards kids, and honestly it was great. Anyway my point here is that there's a chapter towards the end where they go to Number Heaven, where the Number Devils live (the cosmology of the dreamscape in which the Number Devil resides is not really made clear) and they meet Georg Cantor, and he is very strange in a "I thought about infinity WAY too much" way, and now I am imagining the Somnovem as being kind of like Georg Cantor in a children's book from the 1990s about math. Anyway. Yussa is still off the charts but maybe we're a little closer to rescuing him.

*because this is the internet and some people are insufferable I am acknowledging here for posterity both that out-of-combat Astral Plane movement per the DMG p. 17 is not strictly subject to the walking speed = 3 x INT score, and that Beau could also bonus action dash if she wanted to use her limited ki points in the worst possible way, but I am trying to make a very sophisticated joke here, namely hahaha wizard smart sheep stupid Veth tiny.

#critical role #critical role spoilers #shadowgast #essek thelyss #yussa errenis #wizard breakdown tracker #you know what i'm going to just start tagging for characters there's no good reason not to other than my own laziness

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