The best thing about last night’s game: It took Percy and Vex less than 30 minutes to decide to have their characters go fuck in a basement for a bit. As it should be.

and the story goes on, on, on

pike-trickfoots:

The story of Elaina, and the things left out.

Here’s how the story goes: You’re a seamstress in the village. You don’t make a lot of money, but you do well enough. Your name is Elaina, and you are perfectly content.

Here’s how the story goes: You catch the eye of an elvish ambassador. Syldor is charming and handsome and you think you love him.

Here’s how the story goes: Syldor doesn’t love you.

Here’s how the story goes: He leaves you. Nine months later, you find yourself the mother of beautiful twins; Vax’ildan and Vex’ahlia. You think yourself a fool, believing that you loved him. Looking at your children, you now know what real love is.

Here’s how the story goes: Byroden isn’t a rich village, but you always make do. Your children, wild-eyed and mischievous, never go to bed hungry. Your little twin terrors explore the forest and are covered in scrapes from various tumbles, and they make your heart light. Your life isn’t easy, but you wouldn’t change it for the world.

Here’s how the story goes: Your children are ten when an elvish man shows up to retrieve them. Not their father; he couldn’t be bothered to show up on his own, but a servant, as if his children are little more than a menial errand. You don’t know what to do; Syldor’s powerful, and if he wants the twins he can easily take them. So you hug your children tightly, and tell them you love them more than the stars in the sky. You tell them you’ll see them again. They try to cling to your skirts and you fight to keep yourself from sobbing as they are hauled away.

Here’s how the story goes: You never see your children again.

Here’s how the story ends: You die two years later. A dragon’s fire burns your village, your home, you. Nearly fifteen years later, your son will avenge you.

Here’s what the story leaves out: Some part of Syldor cared. Not enough to matter in any of the ways that count, but enough to make his chest tighten when he thinks of you.

Here’s what the story leaves out: Your hands shake the first time you hold your children. You’re so afraid that you’ll do something wrong, that you can’t be enough for them.

Here’s what the story leaves out: You teach your children to sew. Vex’ahlia has no patience for it, and only learns the basics. Vax enjoys it, though, and will often sit with you by the fire while you work. He becomes quite good at embroidery, and you’re so proud your heart swells.

Here’s what the story leaves out: Your favorite part of the day is night time, when you braid the twin’s hair and listen to their stories of everything they did that day. When Vex tells you how high she climbed up into the oak tree, you braid a feather into her hair. Birds need feathers, and you know she’ll keep trying to fly.

Here’s what the story leaves out: Vax brings you crumpled bouquets of dandelions and other weeds, and you declare them the finest flowers you’ve ever seen. You keep every crushed bouquet, pressed between the pages of your favorite book.

Here’s what the story leaves out: You’ve seen a few pieces of fine jewelry in your life, but the bracelet Vex makes you out of scrap fabric and string is the most beautiful by far. You wear it daily, until it burns with you.

Here’s what the story leaves out: You were saving up money to go to Syngorn, to beg Syldor to let you see your children again.

Here’s what the story leaves out: You die on your feet, brandishing a kitchen knife and screaming at the Cinder King. You get a hit in before it all ends, and you die with a feeling of bitter pride burn in your chest.

Here’s what the story leaves out: You were so young.

Here’s what the story leaves out: As the Raven Queen guides you to the next world, she tells you that your children are special. That fate has touched them, that Vax’ildan and Vex’ahlia will change the world.

Here’s what the story leaves out: You already knew that.

blurrycriticalroleposts:

Caption this

“This is the future liberals want.”

Describe the twins in one picture.

kbots5000

replied to your post “So with Scanlan being gnomish 22 and Pike likely being a bit younger…”

Not 100% sure but I’m doing a rewatch of CR and I
just heard matt say that Percy and Cassandra are atleast 15 years
apart. Cassandra herself is at minimum 16, so Percy at the time of the
chroma conclave can’t be less than 31

Yeah, uh, I have no idea where you heard that, but Matt must have
misspoken. Taliesin himself said Percy is in his early 20ies without
wanting to give a number in one of the first Q&As and plays his
character accordingly. If Percy had been 26 during the Briarwoods
attack, the other siblings would have been around that age as well, and
given how Taliesin also stated that one was to be given to the church
and the rest to be married off, even if weird basement tinkerer Percy
got to stay at home, the chances that all the other siblings would have
been around for the annihilation are veeery slim.

I’m really
curious where you heard that, though, because you’re the first person to
ever mention that, and in my rewatches, I have never heard anything
like it.

Thess vs Manners

thessalian:

One of the opinions I saw expressed about the end of Vox Machina’s campaign, specifically Vax’s departure, was … something I feel needs discussing. The opinion was, “It shows how little respect Vox Machina has for Scanlan that they used Manners on him when he was just trying to defuse the situation with humour, the way he always does”. I think that’s harsh and unfair on so many levels. I can see where it comes from, but it relies on looking at Scanlan’s point of view and only Scanlan’s point of view.

I mean, I can see it from Scanlan’s point of view too. He tried so hard to save that last powerful magic so that he could use it to save Vax. He was put in the position where he had to choose his friend over the world. Scanlan chose the world … partly, I imagine, because his friend would want him to. Vax’ildan Vessar would not ever want his survival to come at the cost of the entire world. Vax understands sacrifice – pretty clearly, given how he ended up in his position in the first place. They sealed Vecna away … and as a result, Vax had to go, to fulfill his end of the bargain.

Scanlan had to be hurting over that. And his way of deflection is through humour, yes … but he has never, ever learned how to not do it when the situation doesn’t call for it. He has a low Wisdom score, as Sam himself admits, specifically because “Why do you think he does stupid shit all the time?”. Again, not blaming or saying that Scanlan is a bad person. Scanlan’s a well-developed character with flaws and that’s awesome. But Percy’s a character too … and what about his emotional state?

Consider: Percy’s two best friends – one of them his wife – grieving for Vax, who Percy himself sees as a brother by more than just the in-law bond. Percy with that pact with Ipkesh, the sort of thing that had nearly destroyed him before … but might have been able to bring Vax back. But Vax wouldn’t want that. Vax would want Percy to be there for Vex, and for Keyleth, and wouldn’t want to be responsible for the destruction of Percy’s soul. So Percy’s blaming himself for the same thing Scanlan is – “I could have saved him … but the cost is too high”.

You really expect him to just laugh when Scanlan’s saying, even jokingly, “You could have done something against your better judgement and saved him”?

You really expect him to just let Scanlan keep joking while Keyleth and Vex’s hearts are breaking right in front of him and the only things he could do would break their hearts worse? Because Scanlan never learned when to stop, and often takes a request to stop as a springboard for more jokes, because the jokes make him feel better, rather than a serious request to stop. Maybe Scanlan wouldn’t have continued, but that was a risk that Percy, with the contract with Ipkesh heavy on his mind, wouldn’t have wanted to take. He couldn’t bear being told, “There was something you could have done” because there was something he could have done … at a cost that Vax wouldn’t have wanted Percy to pay.

So, no, I don’t think that Percy using Manners on Scanlan in that situation was ‘a mark of how little they respect Scanlan’, any more than I think that Scanlan joking that he could have taken the Raven Queen if he’d had the gun that Percy always refused to give him is a mark of Scanlan being a bad person. They’re well-developed characters who don’t always make the right choices, on both sides. More, they’re family, and family fucks with each other with moderate impunity because it’s built on a foundation of love. Vax shaved off half of Grog’s beard. Vax stole Taryon’s armour and blamed it on Percy. Tary set dogs loose in Percy’s room not caring that he’d screw with Vex as well. Scanlan, understandable as his upset was, dismissed Percy leveraging his newly regained position as Lord of Whitestone (not to mention risking getting thrown in jail) to help Scanlan’s daughter and dismissed the source and centre of Pike’s beliefs as ‘weird magic shit’. But they still respect each other’s abilities on the field and are there for each other when shit gets real. Just sometimes they can’t see how real the shit has got for their friends on the emotional scale.

I get that people have favourites and they are precious cinnamon rolls and must be protected. That doesn’t mean “throw every other character under the bus”.

So with Scanlan being gnomish 22 and Pike likely being a bit younger than him, the twins being real time 28 which is half-elven 20 or so, Keyleth being around that age if not younger, Grog having no idea how old he is… It is now perfectly possible for Percy to actually be the most physically mature of the group. Sure, he’s like 23-25 in human years at most, but in those 24-ish years, he has reached more physical maturity than most, if not all, of the other members of VM.

And I think that’s hilarious.

(He’s still the youngest in total years, of course. And Taryon is also older than him ‘cause he’s measured the same way, making him 29 at the end of the series. Tary is the actual group grandpa.)

I did not expect Taliesin’s one shot, of all things, to be the one where love saves the day, but here we are. Amazing.

Real talk: The other gods totally call the Raven Queen Nera (or whatever her canon mortal name is in Matt’s setting) whenever they have to communicate. She’s the real new money here before Vecna came along.

acathea:

y’all why does it look like the cr crew doesnt like orion/tiberius? idk im just getting this vibe, whenever he talks they look at him weird??

Okay, so I’m not entirely sure how far along you are, so there are spoilers in this up until episode 27. I’m trying to be chronological. And neutral.

Right from the beginning, Tiberius always had a tendency towards solo adventures. The fact that he spent twenty minutes in the first episode casting spells at a house is a good example.
In and of itself, that’s not really a bad thing, it’s just the first in a long list of instances where he did that. The rest of der Underdark arc didn’t offer itself up to these excursions, so the problem didn’t become apparent until later on.
By episode 11, things get ugly. Without giving a proper reason, Tiberius refuses to join the rest in fighting K’Varn, something the other players and characters bring up frequently afterwards, without ever getting a satisfactory answer from him.
The solution here is that Orion looked up what Beholders do, especially what they can do in their layers, and was afraid Matt was trying to kill him specifically.
Looking up information your character shouldn’t know in-game and then acting upon it is what we call meta-gaming. In the traditional sense. Later in the series, the term meta-gaming as used by the community means “that half-elf did something I disagree with”
It doesn’t help that during the K’Varn fight, Tiberius’ turns take forever as Orion tries to have him have his own little sub-plot as a mindflayer revolution leader and do twenty things in one 6 second turn that are completely unrelated to the major combat going on.
The first climax of objectionable behavior that annoys the rest of the cast happens when Tiberius gets the second final blow on K’Varn and then goes “you all wouldn’t have survived if it wasn’t for me”.
The latter is just not nice, the former is what in some circles is referred to as kill-stealing. Not a thing in D&D, usually, but somewhat applicable here.
When Scanlan tries to ask Tiberius about why the fuck he abandoned them for the fight, Tiberius burns a spell slot to silence him rather than answer. A Spell-off ensues. Humerous on the whole, but considering how it was a legitimate question that was never answered, a very rude way to avoid this conversation.
Also poor table etiquette: Orion trying to trade items with Sam while Sam isn’t at the table to trade with him. Not malicious, I’m sure, but poor etiquette nonetheless.
Also poor etiquette: When Vex makes a nigh-impossible shot in episode 16 or 17, and manages to roll somewhere in the 30ies, rather than see if she can have that moment, Tiberius casts a spell to help. Not malicious, but seemed like spotlight stealing, especially when you look at Laura’s reaction during this.
More poor etiquette: When Percy is trying to have a moment during episode 14 or 15 when the Briarwoods are mentioned in the council, Tiberius randomly inserts himself into the scene. Again, to be helpful, and yet, maybe not the most appropriate thing to do.
Things get really ugly during the Trial of the Take episodes, where he becomes really stand-offish and downright mean. Quoth Keyleth: “Why are you being such a poopy-head?”
Something that also starts becoming suspicious: Orion may or may not (look into youtube comments or reddit threads here for the full arguments) fudge his dice rolls and resource management a little. Usually concerning Sorcery points; I think they mentioned somewhere that Matt houseruled that Sorcerers get a few more points than in the vanilla handbook, but the amount of points and spell slots Tibs burns during these episodes is… Impressive.
Which may or may not mean cheating.
He also very adamantly insists on long-resting during a pursuit mission because he has burned all his higher level spells. Technically a valid concern, but not when you’re chasing an enemy on the clock who is already aware that he is being followed and has means to escape.
And usually, not that big of a concern when you’re the team’s damage dealer. Unless of course you have looked up that Rakshasas are immune to spells under 6th level and don’t want your character to not be the most awesome in the fight.
“You can’t always get the guitar solo” – Liam, at some point around that time.
At that point, when you look at the statistics, Tiberius had also knocked a bunch of party members unconscious on several occasions by being too carefree with friendly fire
During these episodes, Tiberius’ turns still take a seriously long time because he doesn’t remember his spells, forgets how certain items work (like the one he made a point to trade Sam for twice. See the Maths with Tiberius bit) and has to be almost constantly corrected on these, dragging out combat even more, which is bound to annoy other players at some point.
“I realize what I’m doing and stop.” – Tiberius, frequently, after having been informed that he got it wrong, again.
It is after this that the Tiberius shopping extravaganzas start. Now shopping trips are always a bit tedious for some, like battles are for others.
I personally liked Lockheed and found him a delight in the later episodes of Tiberius’s presence, but you can tell that Orion worked very little with Matt in figuring out how a familiar should work for him, or how to train him. Working with your dungeon master on things is key.
Also when training Lockheed, Orion often rolled before telling Matt what he was trying to do, which falls somewhere into the sliding scale of cheating, meta-gaming or just plain bad etiquette.
He also tries to have the… Spinning dagger wheel glaive thing built during this, again without consulting Matt beforehand, so figuring it out takes additional screentime from other players while Orion does his solo thing.
Compare and contrast: If and how Percy’s inventions work is almost always talked out off-screen so no actual game time is spent on the really fiddly logistics and debating of rules.
Then when the group returns to Emon in episode 24 and the Briarwoods come up again, everyone goes to talk to Percy about his backstory and the plot, except for Tiberius. Tiberius goes off to have his teleportation circle adventure.
Which, don’t get me wrong, was hilarious and actually did benefit the party. It still showed that either the player or the character showed no interest in the plot or the other player characters’ backstory, which is plain and simple not the kind of game being played here.
Cut to episode 25. Before even knowing what they’re facing, Tiberius charges his decanter of endless water. Because someone has been hitting the monster manual again and found out about vampires being weak to running water.
Now whether or not Tiberius knew this about vampires would have had to have been rolled for. He’s a scholar, so maybe. The true problem is that except for Vax, no one at the time actually knew they were facing a vampire. This is, again, what is usually referred to as meta gaming.
When Tiberius is then rendered completely incapable of thought or speech, he doesn’t do the instinctual thing Matt tells him to do, basically, in protecting his friends. He runs off to find Allura, again chosing the preservation of his own character over the rest of the group. And acting in a way he wasn’t intellectually capable of at the time.
I’m not gonna go into old lady gate and the events of episode 26. Chalk that up to actual character role play. Though the character is a bit of an entitled asshole, so people getting annoyed with that is understandable.
It gets really bad during episode 27 though. First, he makes a vagule inappropriate and uncomfortable comment about getting a “half-chub” from Vex’s brilliance. Which, ah. Everyone at the table thought weird at the time, and is just really uncomfortable.
They gave him the opportunity to redact this. He refused and doubled down that Tiberius was turned on by Vex’s mind.
Creepy and poor etiquette. Compare and contrast way later in the story when someone is definitely also turned on by her brilliance, but simply praises how amazing she is, rather than describing a physical reaction his character has and as such distracting from the person he’s trying to praise here.
He then goes on the longest shopping extravaganza yet, trying several impossible things he hasn’t worked out with Mercer beforehand, getting upset when he is told no, trying anyway, getting more upset when it doesn’t work. This is, by the way, the actual point where Travis starts muttering “I’m gonna kill him.”
He then tries to call for an army to deal with Percy’s personal arc. An army he had no access to, he had not previously talked about with his DM, and that would have made him the hero of someone else’s character arc.

Orion is gone from the table after that episode. Now mind you, there were some behind the scenes, legal, and personal shenanigans going on that we weren’t privy to. They all seem to be on mostly good terms, but nowhere as close as they were before the split. Orion has recently come forward and confessed that not only was he going through chemotherapy during this time, he also had or has a drug problem and felt like he was “trapped in his own head” at the time. He especially laments not being close friends with Marisha anymore, which further hints that some shit must have gone down.

Regarding the meta gaming and spotlight sharing, aside comments in later games tell us that Matt did try to talk to Orion about these issues outside of the game, but Orion didn’t really take it to heart too much, from what we can see.

Oh, also, there was a dispute where Orion yelled at a fan for making a T-Shirt on Twitter. So badly that other actors chimed in on the fan’s behalf. All that stuff is going on during Orion’s last 10 or so episodes.

TL;DR: Orion was bad about sharing the spotlight during the game, worked against instead of with the DM, may or may not have cheated to make his character look cooler, all the while going through a few personal crises and facing some administrative issues behind the scenes. None of the things here were done with malicious intent, neither by Orion nor the other players. The playstyles just didn’t mesh, and the little things added up, creating the friction that is tangible during later episodes. And that’s why he gets these looks.