#someone else said that Sam might play the Aeormaton that FCG once was and whoever you are I love you

[12pt-times-new-roman]

I am so ready for EXU: Calamity.

Like others have pointed out, I absolutely love that this is an adventure for which we know the ending, but we don't know the ending. We know what's going to happen, we know that nothing anyone can do will ever stop it — but we don't know what they will do. Matt and Brennan have created a story where tragedy and loss is inevitable, where the ending has already happened and the history has already been written, but they've done it in such a way that never robs the players of their agency.

Because the truth is, we don't know what happened. We don't know what will happen. The Calamity didn't just destroy 2/3rds of Exandria's population, it didn't just destroy every magocracy of the Age of Arcanum, it didn't just devastate the world — in a way, the Calamity destroyed itself. It destroyed its own history, and most of the history that came before it. We know that it happened, we know some of the things that occurred — but all that we know exists on the order of gods.

Vespin Chloras released the Betrayer Gods because he wanted to ascend like the Raven Queen. (Dire Children chase the Matron's wake.) The Betrayer Gods, upon seeing the world, no longer sought to destroy but to dominate. (Festering wounds from schisms long-since passed.) They formed a stronghold at Ghor Dranas, decimated Xhorhas, and launched an attack on Vasselheim. That attack forced the Prime Deities to descend and fight the Betrayer Gods. The Apotheon was given gifts of the gods and nearly defeated Gruumsh, Torog was banished (probably by Sehanine), Tharizdun was locked away by Ioun and Pelor, and the Betrayer Gods were imprisoned once more. The Prime Deities left Exandria and built the Divine Gate so nothing like the Calamity would ever happen again. (The wheel will always spin, its gilded fulcrum rotting from within.)

So the history is written, the time has gone by, but the stories haven't been told. Things end in tragedy and destruction and inevitable loss. The march of time will carry on, the march of time will stop for no one's hands, the march of time will inevitably and invariably push forward. That history happens, has happened, will happen. It's gone by. It's done.

But that's the thing about tragedies.

In my eyes, a really, truly good tragedy is a story where it seems like there are a thousand, thousand times where a character could've made a different choice, a thousand chances for things to end up better, a thousand opportunities to avoid what's coming next — but where it simultaneously feels like nothing could have ever avoided the inevitable end. A good tragedy comes when we know that the characters could have made a different choice, could have done something different, could have changed course, but we also know that those characters never would have. And that's what we know now: this tragedy will happen, because these characters may once have had a chance to stop it, but they were blinded by their comfort and arrogance until it was too late. They could have had a chance at stopping Chloras, but they never would have.

(Honestly? I think that these characters are the people who could've stopped Chloras from releasing the Betrayer Gods, but didn't. I think the city they're on either housed the temple he used, or floated above it. I think that we're going to get to see Brennan play possibly the greatest mortal villain in all of Exandrian history, and I really, really hope that this is the series where we finally get to see a full party of 20th-level characters.)

I can't find it anymore but there's a post floating around about Shakespeare's tragedies — about how if you put Othello in Hamlet's plot he'd have killed Claudius immediately, and if you put Hamlet in Othello's plot he'd out-think Iago. But it's because the characters are who they are that these inevitable tragedies are allowed to happen. Heraclitus, a Greek philosopher, had a saying that went something like this: character is destiny. I think this is what they meant.

We know how it ends, but we'll watch it anyway. Because really, we don't know how it ends. We know how people think it ends, we know how the gods told people it ends, and yeah, that might be the truth. But there's a world of difference between world history on the order of gods, and the tale of a group of would-be heroes who never really had a chance but tried anyway. (Especially when those gods are known to lie.)

#critical role #critical role meta #exandria unlimited #exu #exu: calamity #exu calamity #note watches c3 #at first I thought one of them might play Halas but iirc he was born during the calamity but this takes place right before it #someone else said that Sam might play the Aeormaton that FCG once was and whoever you are I love you #that would be so fucking cool #but we know for a fact that Leylas Kryn lived through the Calamity #and I do have to wonder #what if all (or some of) the characters they play are consecuted #and we eventually find out who they are in the present day? #or what if someone plays one of the Somnovem? someone from Aeor? that mage trapped in the bubble in the amphitheater?? #there are so many possibilities #I apologize in advance for the state of my dash whenever things about this drop