Critical Role - Oh My Gods | 4-Sided Dive | Episode 26: Discussing Up To C3101

Episode Date: August 2, 2024

Brennan Lee Mulligan, Taliesin Jaffe, Ashley Johnson and Laura Bailey discuss the tragic tale of Downfall! These gods will also be playing a fitting game of Kerplunk because you know sometimes ancient cities go kerplunk... BEACON  We’re excited to bring you even MORE with a Beacon membership! Start your 7-day free trial today at https://beacon.tv/join and get unparalleled access to the shows you love completely ad-free! You’ll receive NEW Beacon exclusive series, instant access to VODs & podcasts, live event pre-sales, merch discounts, & a private Discord. YOUTUBE MEMBERS / TWITCH SUBSCRIBERSTwitch Subscribers and YouTube Members gain instant access to VODs of our shows, moderated live chats, and custom emojis & badges:  https://www.youtube.com/criticalrole/join  https://www.twitch.tv/criticalrole   4-Sided Dive airs one Tuesday a month on http://twitch.tv/criticalrole and http://youtube.com/criticalrole "Let's Roll (4-Sided Dive Theme)" by Peter Habib and Sam RiegelOriginal Music by Omar Fadel and Hexany AudioAdditional Music by Universal Production Music, Epidemic Sounds, and 5 Alarm

Oh, hello! Ashley Johnson here, your 26th Tavern Keeper, and welcome to our very special Fursurterderf. That's Foursighted Dive. I thought I'd put a little spin on it. Where we will be covering everything that went down in Downfall. This is going to be such a juicy episode and I am so happy to be here reading this teleprompter. I mean, just look at me. You can tell that reading a teleprompter is my absolute favorite thing, along with saying complicated words correctly

and conflagrating totalitarian majorcrisies. Speaking of which, the incomparable Brennan Lee Mulligan is here to tell us why he is so damn good at destroying flying cities filled with jerks. Taliesin Jaffe played as Caduceus' goddess the Wild Mother. I'm so good at reading teleprompter. I played as Pike's goddess the Everlight, and Laura Bailey played that bitch that ruined Vex's family in campaign one.

What the feck is up with that? Well, we are gonna find out. But first, we say goodbye to something very special. The C block. Or, as it was recently branded, more sighted dive, was a good block, a proper block. It was messy, boisterous, and often had nothing to do with Critical Role, much to the frustration of our viewers,

but not tonight. Since we have so much to discuss with Downfall, we will not be doing a more sighted dive for this episode, which means no games, no fuck arounds, but yes, there still will be a consequence for the Tower of Inquiry, but means no games, no fuck arounds, but yes, there still will be a consequence for the Tower of Inquiry, but out of respect, oops, out of respect for the block that gave us so much, a tribute. Remember the memories Cherish the memories It's a four-sided dive.

Block C. Remember all of the memories Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh Remember all of the memories Goodbye, C-Block. May you be hastily shoehorned into the third act of our hearts and memories. Welcome to Foresighted Dive! Let's conflagrate a totalitarian majorocracy! Woo! I'm gonna go see that.

Whee! Inquiry. Inquiry. Five, four, three, two... Goodbye. Welcome back. Let's begin the night with our open discussion segment, What the Fuck is Up with Downfall? Mm-hmm.

So, do you have questions? open discussion segment, What the Fuck is Up with Downfall? Da da da da da da da da da. So, do you have questions? Dum dum dum. What is up with downfall? Oh, see, that's a good little play on words. Begin on, that's the beginning of like a. And then a graphic of two arrows, one goes up, one goes down.

It's just like some, so Married an Axe Murderer beat poetry. What is up with down? Ball. Oh man. What goes up must come down. Character creation. What was it like, you guys?

You were there. What was it like? You were there. Well, tell me about it. It was rough, man. Can we jump into the number one thing that I think folks, the question, this was the hardest thing to wrestle with in terms of character creation. Doing a split party of betrayers and primes or doing solely primes. And I feel like this is an insight because I've seen some folks be like, obviously every one of these characters is fucking awesome, but I've seen people that were really guessing,

oh, we're gonna have a split party, and we ended up with all primes, because I set a bar. I set a little bar when we were doing character creation, and for folks that are watching, I really wrestled with it a lot, because I was like, I know how fucking cool it would be to have some players playing Betrayers there.

A lot of the players wanted to play Betrayer Goats. Players wanted to play Betrayer Goats. I didn't want to be a Betrayer. I always liked to beat good guys, though. There you go. And really, it wasn't anything to do, it wasn't anything to do with bad or good guys. It was that I really wanted,

I think that there is a thing that when you've been GMing for many, many years where you know that there is stuff that is really shiny and really, really fun to think about. And then when it hits the table, it lands like a lead balloon. And one of the things I was worried about

was someone being like, I'm gonna be, oh, I'll be Bane, the Strife Emperor, or I'll be this character that has this other stuff going on. And then you get there and you go, oh, I have a totally uncomplicated relationship to destroying the city.

I'm basically here antagonizing the people who are playing prime deities, and I'm just kind of kicking it for three episodes. I am a full Statler and Waldorf in my own campaign, heckling the characters that actually have a conflicted relationship with what's happening. And that was my big fear. So when we were doing character creation,

I was like, anyone here can play Betrayer Gods. My only bar all set is, do you have a vision for playing a Betrayer God that gives them a relationship to what's happening that is as textured and complex as the one you have for a Prime Deity? And as we went through character creation, it was everyone going, oh, he had the point of view.

No, it would just be sexy for a minute, and then I'd get bored. I think Nick brought a really interesting take on, was it the? The Crawling King. The Crawling King, yeah. But it was just funny, because everybody, like, when we started it, you had us all pitch, like, three different gods. Like, let's see what you're thinking, and then we'll see how they all kind of mesh together

and what kind of relationships form. And, like, almost, I think all the dudes pitched being a betrayer god, like, as their number one. But then as it got talked about, it was like, but, but, but, maybe, yeah. Maybe, yeah. But I think there's, like, this glamour to being, like, a baddie with, like, a good, you know, like, oh, but you're not seeing the heart of it, or they're just misunderstood, or something like that, which has always been,

that's the number one choice in RPG, like in video game RPGs, when the research is done, everybody wants to play the bad path, but then turn them good. They want to be the anti-hero. Yeah, totally. I just wanted to be, I'm always a big fan of a Spike or Cordelia, not to use the of like just being the one person who's kind of,

which you managed to pull off perfectly. And it's like in hindsight, it was like, oh yeah, this would have been, it would have been playing an NPC. That was my fear. It would have been just being there going, oh, look, you're being a hypocrite. Look at this, look at this. And, but like, that's, but that's not interesting. You'd be sitting on the back line doing support moves.

You'd be, again, it would be, I'm sure anyone would have knocked it out of the park, but coming out as a Spider Queen or a Lord of the Hells and stepping into it and being like, you think you're good, but you're not. I'm gonna go back to eating my sandwich. You know, like, and then you're sort of like, which is very fun as an NPC,

but that's why NPCs are not spotlight characters. No, and there are some really interesting conversations to be had there with the betrayers about how they feel about the split and the, this is not fair. I don't feel like this was really appropriate at all, but like, that's a different game. Yeah.

And there was also a certain degree too where we had two mission briefs here, which was not only to depict the fall of Aeor, but also to depict the fall of Aeor as it is being witnessed by Bell's Hells. And so that was another sort of thing when I was like, oh, do we want to focus on prime deities? And it feels like for where campaign three is at,

any revelation about the betrayer gods, you would probably walk away and be like, yeah, they really hate mortals. Good point. Yeah. They, they kind of want the world to burn as opposed to the revelations that can be

had about the prime deities, which feels way more crucial to, to be like, I really need to figure out how I feel about the gods that theoretically, you know, went to war to save us. That's the, that's the sort of like the thing that is the, the prime conversation, no pun intended. I mean, this goes on and on. The next question here was what direction did Brennan give? I remember one of the things that you said, you were like, these characters

have the most backstory of any characters. And another thing I feel like when I talked to you, when we had a Zoom, a meeting, and when I had decided on it, when we all sort of figured out what we were going to play. And I was going to play the Everlight. And I was really kind of struggling with, like, I don't know. I feel like it's boring to play. I was trying to figure out how to play. Good felt boring.

I was like, how do you make that complicated? And you said something. I mean, the whole, that whole meeting just blew my mind because you just went off on all of your wonderful thoughts and advice that you have. But you sort of made this analogy where you're like, well, why would it not be interesting someone who goes into battle and they're the person that sort of lays over the grenade and you know that's someone that's technically being a good person to take care of everyone around them but there's a lot of complications in that choice i fully subscribe to like ursula k leguin you know the thoughts of like the banality of evil. And as someone who studied ethics and that's like my, I feel like creative hyper fixation is the difference between right and wrong and what we mean by that and what cultures mean by that is the motivations to do evil things are, I think, really understand. I don't think evil is complex.

And, you know, it's very funny. There's a lot of, like, villains in pop culture that I don't see as being good representations of what villainy is. You know, you see something like Thanos, where it's like, I snap my finger, and we need to free up more resources. And you're like, snap it and make twice as much resources!

You know, like, you have a thing where you're like, I don't know if you thought this through, big guy. When in reality, sorry, when in reality, you have situations where, I mean, I'd be snapping all day, room temperature superconductors, nuclear fusion, bang, bang, boom, pow, pow.

Universal healthcare, ba, ba, ba, ba. But you, in reality, the villains of the world are motivated by fear of death, fear of loss of power, greed. Like, very simple primal urges to be like, I only care about me and the things that are mine. You go like, yeah, that is what it is. It's very interesting.

Yeah, it's bad. That's bad. That's what's bad. And you're not going to get a big, you know, like, and the nature of evil is I want stuff and I want your stuff. You know, like, it doesn't feel like as interesting, but I think it's a realer depiction of what it really is. And to me, good is endlessly complex. Yes.

Yes. Totally. That's what sort of blew my mind, because I was like, yeah, good is a little bit more complex than I think I was thinking. But this whole game, and even now, and when we finished and playing through it, I think it, I mean, it's amazing that you studied ethics because it totally makes sense because I feel like this whole game was just about what feels right or wrong to each person.

And I didn't feel right about much of anything that we were doing and just having to wrestle with that. It was, yeah, it was really intense. It was was really intense and there was a lot of um like you said there's so much backstory with these characters that there's like that hope and also fear that you're not gonna do their backstory justice you know because there is so much lore behind all of the the gods that it's like oh there's so much to take on here. And I want to be able to play every nuance of that without, especially with the matron, without giving too much away, because there's so many secrets around her history. And, you know, you had a heavy task. Yeah. And we had a lot of conversations. You and I had a lot of conversations and me and Matt had a lot of conversations

about it as well, because there's so much about the Matron that hasn't been revealed to us as players and he you know he likes to surprise us still you know so he was like okay I don't want to tell you anything but I got to give you a little bit in order to like help you out here and then like you and I were like what if what if what if and then I was like it Matt going what if it was this and and he was like, ah, ah, yeah. You can think that, just don't say it out loud, okay? Well, that head nod.

That head nod, I felt that head nod before. I'm not gonna play that, I'm not gonna play that, don't worry, I won't say it out loud. It's so great that, I mean, I need to, to your point about what it felt like playing through this. I've said this before, but I will say it here in this Foresighted Dive where we're talking about the series. What you guys did was impressive as performers, as storytellers, on a level that I don't know. For people watching it, you all made it look easy.

You played three different characters in the first episode. We had an extemporaneous fall from grace of- Which nobody knew what exactly it was gonna be. What is- And all of us were looking around going, okay, apparently no one told me there was a loop on this roller coaster. Here we go, woo!

And then suddenly you're playing not only the gods, but also playing distinct relationships between mortals and the gods. Laura gets thrown a curve ball in episode two where like, oh no, the straight up god? Yeah, okay, great. And suddenly we're there, everyone's playing, and then you have even a distinction where it's like,

you have the Everlight who's truly like, maybe I'll just be a mortal, maybe I'll just be immortal. Maybe I'll just be a, like, this life is nicer than the one I had as a god. You have Asha, who's like, oh no, I'm fully subsumed into the essence of the, the Wildmother is calling the shots here. Oh yeah.

Like, and, which is honestly closer to how the Betrayers are running their mortal avatars. Yeah. I noticed that for sure. Boy, I found that really interesting. Like, there was a lot of time I was sitting there going, boy, there's, I have, I figured out the edge, which is why I'm not over there. Yeah.

Like, there's only one decision, which was she can't leave. Like, Exandria, she is stuck there. Yeah. Like, if she leaves, nature goddess does not survive leaving a planet. That is its own, so there was a lot of one line away from being on the other side of this.

And not to boil things down to alignment, but the prime deities are not all good aligned, right? Like the Everlight is, but the Matron of Ravens is not. So you have these perspectives that are not all rooted in how do we do the most good for the most people possible. the Matron of Ravens is not, right? So you have these perspectives that are not all rooted in how do we do the most good for the most people possible. You have Nashir, who's being like, I am here as the emissary of a lawful, neutral deity.

Which took us by the fucking surprise. Wow. I didn't even ask you, because I'm sure you had so much in your brain of what you were going to do, all these relationship things, and then Nashir shows up and is like, I'm not you had so much in your brain of what you were gonna do, all these relationship things, and then Nashir shows up and is like, I'm not the lawbreaker.

I am this fabulous child. I'm this fabulous child. It was so good. And Nashir had this, and again, when I talked to Nashir, I was like, with a lot of people, I said, what made you choose your side in the schism? Because any of these gods could have been prime or betrayer.

And I remember Nashir talking about the Lawbearer being like, there is no sentimentality. There is no sentimental love for mortals, but we do owe them. We made a contract. You don't get to start the test over halfway through. We decided to create a world together and we're still doing it.

And I was like, that is a perspective that would absolutely put you on one side of the schism and absolutely let you uncomplicatedly destroy the city of Aeor, right? Where you're like, it's like, I remember we even came up with some Matt-approved divine laws that the law bearer was setting out.

And the first one was like, the gods are unimpeachable, which is usually the first thing that any code of laws does is, number one, this code of laws is the code of laws, and it has authority because it has authority. Like, you have a little tautology. Like, first rule, rules matter. Second rule.

But in that, but in that, like in terms of what felt right or wrong, as we started this, that document I gave all of you that had all these like mood board things on it, none of them were feel good. It was like Saturn devouring his children. It was like Lady Macbeth with the blood on his, it was Oppenheimer staring away.

It's the Wesley Snipes from New Jack City like holding the gun and crying. And this, we said right away, like this is a tragedy and a divine horror. You guys are gonna be playing, this is the gods taking the action that in my opinion, in the lore of Exandria is the darkest moment of the prime deities.

For nothing more than, I think, like, you know, the initial thing with Matt was looking at this lore and being like, they called a truce after 100 years of war? And it wasn't to, like, figure things out or divvy things up. It was a pause. It was a timeout to protect themselves.

And I was like, that's, who wants to die? I don't want to die. But we understand the priorities of the deities, which is, let's be clear, rule number one, we're gonna survive, right? And you all, as I want people to know that you guys all going into that had these things, Walter White was another figure on the mood board.

So everyone walked into this knowing this is about the darkest moment in the ancient history of these gods on Exandria. And the feeling of going through it, especially knowing, for me too, it was like, this does not end on a note of triumph and celebration. And part of that was talking to Matt about the handoff of like, this story is not a story that ends

in triumph and celebration. It's a story that ends in horror and anguish and a kind of divine nausea, I feel like, that then we emerge in front of Bells Hells and Ludinus. And that's really the, like, that's why this story had to end on that feeling of . It felt that way.

Oh us, what did we do? It felt awful. Yeah. Yes. And I feel like all of the, so much of it didn't really fully, I mean, I knew what we were doing. We know the story. We know what happens.

But I think it didn't really, like, when we hit the third game, I was like, shit. I could see it on your face, too. You were like, what? I want to make different, can we go back? Because I have other things that I want to do. I just want to save the bar. Just the bar!

Fuck everything else. The bar stays. That was so cool. The guy in the door. ZV-X? Yes! I love him! Woo! 4X, the bartender and all the... Oh, that whole sequence was so wonderful. So completely unexpected. Everything else had been leading up, and then we walk in the bar, and all the, well, and that's the. Oh, that whole sequence was so wonderful.

So completely unexpected. Like everything else had been leading up and then we walk in the bar, it was like, oh, I love it. I love it here. Well, anytime you have totalitarian government, you have to have a sexy speakeasy. Yeah, right.

You gotta cabaret that shit. Yeah, totally. Absolutely. What happened to cabaret? Yes. I love when Alan Cumming. I loved it really well. I was well aware. Yes, absolutely. What happened to Cabaret? Yes. I loved it really well. I was well aware. That scene where Alan Cumming spins around in a door

and then opens up and there's a pocket dimension. Yeah, I love that. Well, hey, were there character goals here? Were there character goals? Yeah, like- Wait, what do you mean? It just says character goals, question mark? So maybe like, how would I interpret that question? Were there character goals?

Were there things that you wanted to achieve or things that you wanted to, what's the word that I'm looking for? How you saw the god and how you wanted to have it be perceived, maybe? Is there a better way to ask this question? I think it's good to show that, I mean, as I perceived the matron,

death isn't bad. She doesn't look at it as a, it's not a sad thing. Death is inevitable. It's going to happen. So I didn't want to have like sadness over the fact that this was going to occur. It was just. Where did the souls of Eor go out of curiosity? Just putting that out in the world. But I remember in the first campaign, which, spoilers, if you haven't watched it, when we do talk to the gods, we went and saw the Dawnfather.

We went and spoke to the Everlight. We spoke to the Goddess of Knowledge, or the Knowing Mistress. I know, Exandria the Everlight, we spoke to the goddess of knowledge or the knowing mistress. I know, Exandria. I know what our fucking gods are called, okay? And like seeing the souls, there were like souls that we passed by and stuff. Oh yeah.

I think Matt called them like, maybe I'm just totally making shit up, pearls, right? I feel like I remember that too. They were like pearls on a shore, like endless grains of sand. I was talking to Nick Marini, who has his portrayal of the Dawnfather and the Dawnchild

and kind of seeding that last scene where he sheds Aiden as the Dawnfather. And you watch the beginning of a Dawnfather that in modern exandery is much harsher and sterner and some kind of naivete or optimism dies in downfall. I don't think the gods, there's a great thing that all of you did that the gods fundamentally changed

when they left the Eternal Palace and had to become real. And I think that all of them becoming mortal changes a part of them as well. And I think that the Dawnfather is not unaffected by the passing of Aiden and the idea of like, oh, that optimism did not come to pass, right? But Nick was mentioning a specific thing about death

and it's the one argument, because I think for me, I was like, this is, to me, it's all about the solidarity of the gods and the horror of being immortal and looking up and being like, the Lord of the Hells and the Dawnfather have more love between them than either of them, I think, has for me.

And knowing that and the horror of that. But the one thing I think Nick brought up that was interesting was he was like, in the physical cosmology of Exandria, souls pass to an afterlife based either on worship or the actions they took or who knows what. You know, that's a question for Matt of exactly how that all breaks out. But they pass on. They pass on. And we've seen the souls of those who have passed into another life.

We don't know what happens to the gods when they die. Exactly. We into another life. We don't know what happens to the gods when they die. We don't know. We don't know what happens. But at the same time, wait, that brings up a whole other question. If the gods, matrons, shepherds them on, and they pass to the realm of whatever god they worshipped, or to another if they didn't worship any god in particular, and those gods harbor those souls, right?

Yeah. Dani, do you have like- Oh no, I was sneezing and trying really hard to not sneeze into my microphone. And those gods harbor those souls. Those eternal souls. What happens when those gods get killed? So in a way, what happens to those souls?

Does that end all of the souls that had? But also like those little pearls that were on the shore, are they just like, oh, what are they doing? There was a process before the gods got there. There was a process for these souls. It's a process, we don't exactly know. That too, the fact that Matt has established that mortal life existed on Exandria before the gods,

which really takes us away from, it's, I was saying this before we started, it's more like the Aesir arriving in Norse mythology and showing up and being like, hey, a lot of stuff is already going on. We are largely, not with obvious exceptions, but largely culture gods, gods of crafting or law or things like that.

And we are here to establish a new order on an already created world, right? And there's a lot of mythologies that line up with, you know, Aesir Vanir, Olympians and Titans, the Furbolg and the Tuatha de Danann. There's a lot of different world mythologies that have that like, you know, in the Celtic mythology, there's the Book of Invasions, which is like,

there's some gods, new gods show up, beat them up, drive them under the hill, now you're fairies, congratulations. And it's, you know, there's a lot of things in the Exandrian cosmology that are not directly one-to-one with, you know, a given understanding of the divine. But what I love, talking about the character goals again, I feel like my big fist pump for the Matron of Ravens

was when the gods were talking about mortals and you had the law bearer, or you had the emissary, and you had the Wildmother, and the Wildmother's like, "'Fuck them up, I'm hungry." And then you have the Everlight and the Dawnfather being like, we have to do a better way. We have to take care of them. And the Matron, as the only one who started mortal,

was like, dog, they're adults. They can take it. The Matron, as this weirdly paying the most respect to these mortals, being like, they're not afraid. They will not love you for doing that. They'll resent you. Like, we are, like, I am a product of the age of Arcanum. They want to kill you, man.

They think they're ready for round one. You know, like, or honestly, round two, right? They think they're ready. And I think that there was something in the Matron as that neutral, morally neutral deity of just just like, this is the reality of death. I feel like that was an actualization of the character. Being like, in a weird way, even though this wasn't the exact words, it was like, pay these mortals the respect of going to war with them. Like, they're

ready. You know, like, I don't know. It was interesting. I will say that when we were setting up characters, I definitely had a distinct feeling about what the Wild Mother thought of the Matron. And boy, it shifted so fucking hard over this game. I'm willing to believe that definitely that was the Wild Mother going, Oh, okay. You're family now. I don't know if I can quite get over how you ended up here ever, but okay, your value is clearly yes. You don't know. That's the problem.

Nobody knows. That is the, I mean, that is, the more you think about how you got here, the more it's such a cosmic violation of another human being, so to speak. Yeah, I mean, this is, and the Wild Mother is very, very big. The Wild Mother is the goddess of the big picture.

That is terrible. And going, I'm missing a bit. I'm just missing a fucking bit. You took it from me. Sure, the Knowing Mistress. Oh. Oh, sure. Maybe. You and, I think the Knowing Mistress is secretly incredibly pissed. Yeah. Oh, yeah. What do and, I think the Knowing Mistress is secretly incredibly pissed.

What do you mean there's a secret? But you and Nick each had moments as kind of the dual most nature god of the Primes, you know, like the Wild and the Sun, each had a moment where you accepted the Matron, which to me feels like the amazing thing that can only come out through actual play, where it's like, oh, we know that this is the downfall

of Aeor, what we didn't know and what we established through organic play is this is the moment where the Matron was fully accepted by the other Primes, like the end Nick being like, you're family. Like you are family. And that's a really cool thing to learn and an intense outcome. The temple of the clays,

of the dust, the stones, and the clays was entirely a conversation between the Matron and the Wildmother. That was a thing that was created because of that relationship. And it didn't even occur to me going in that, I haven't, I really have done the opposite of establishing that relationship

at the beginning of this game. I was like, okay, now I absolutely see it. I have a point also for Ashley, talking about that feeling, especially in that third episode, where everything starts to pick up and you're fighting in the Factorum Malleus and you're there with Cassida trying to get the things

and there's this moment where you realize, wait, Cassida thinks that she's building the weapon to help us, but then we're here with the betrayers that we've already decided to work with, and they're like, oh, she just wants to kill us, how fun! And you're like, oh, how do I manage this? Because she thinks she's helping, because she sees it as a war, and it is a war, but it's kind of not a war,

not for us. Yeah. And you're suddenly, and then it's you. I just want to trap them forever. It's you and the Lord of the Hells. I just want to trap them forever. Come on.

Come on. I'll get over it. But you have this horror in this moment and I think what, the thing I wanted to say about the reality of that horror and how uncomfortable that was. And listen, all of the, like,

there were so many moments on breaks where I would come out and see Abu or Nick or Nashir, and they'd be there like, and I'd be like, you're nailing it! You're like, like, I was like, this is, and it's a type of horror story. Again, it's not like Freddy or Jason horror. It's moral horror. it's divine horror.

Right? It is the- That I'm pumped with moral horror. I'm feeling in your gut, I'm going- Right, of, it's the flood, it's Sodom and Gomorrah, you know, the things that you even referenced going in, it's the, there's that line from the book of Job, where it's Job's like, you've ruined my life,

and basically, the poetry is beautiful, but it's like, oh, did I? Where were you when the world was made? And there's this fundamental feeling of like, oh, I'm just so small. And is that the whole point? That I'm just so, I just don't get it. And Cass at his point about understanding,

all of which is to say in that third episode, the dawning horror on the Everlight as events ramped up and ramped up and ramped up, and suddenly you're like, my family, something's going wrong in Hawkshill, and Arcadia's working with Cassida, and the Factorum, the fight's going bad. The ultimate horror of that,

that I thank you for depicting, because I think the nausea of the Everlight wanting to have made a different choice depicts the fact that we make our moral choices in a chaotic, moving world. And the doom was written when Milo Khaust, who was an illusion the entire time, when Milo Khaust, spoilers, why are you watching this?

You know this is spoilers. When Father Milo Khaos goes, you don't have a week, you have tonight. That's when the moral doom of the Dawnfather and the Everlight was written, because you don't make your ideal moral choice in stopped time. You make whatever scrambling, panicked, fearful thing

as you wonder if you will die here, if the Factor of Malleus will turn on and zap you first. Yeah. Fun. Fun times. I do want to know, your take on the Wild Mother was so different and wonderful, but different than I ever would've thought

it would have been. Yeah, same. And I loved it. Thank you. What was that, the fuck was that about? What the fuck was that about? I mean, on the surface, it was definitely me taking the Wild Mother of Caduceus and going, perhaps I didn't make myself clear.

It's actually, a lot of it comes from a thing I heard. I'm trying to remember who said it. It was someone, Stephen Fry, actually. It was a thing I used to, because I knew a lot of hippie kids growing up, or a lot of hippies growing up. And the whole notion of nature worship was always one of those things, especially since I was a teenager. I took teenage umbrage of, because I was surrounded by it and you have to be angry at something.

And the part of it that, especially as a city kid, I got was, this is awful. I don't like being in nature. Nature is terrifying. There are sounds, there are smells, there are things that jump out of the fucking bushes at you. I don't like this. And I am not built for this.

I really wasn't. And eventually, the phrase that I eventually heard out of Stephen Fry is, if you remove human intervention and remove consciousness, nature is basically every life form on planet earth, living a life of pain and starvation until it dies violently. And that is what nature is, is starvation and violence, nothing else. That is it. And thinking about that is really fascinating,

which is, especially in a world where nature's not doing that well. And when nature's doing well, there can be, like, nature's relationship to people is very different. There's bounty, and there's food, and there's beauty. But the minute that starts getting askew,

and like, you know, once we dial it back to before we had civilization, it is starvation and violence. It's such a well-thought-out way to think of it. I'm the same way, Ashley. When I think of the Wild Mother, my brain goes, like, growth and Mother Earth and this beautiful green floral, you know, feminine nature. All that green and floral is gone right now. It has fucking been wasted. There is nothing on this planet left. My brain wouldn't have gone there

and you opened my eyes as we were playing. Yeah, me too. And she definitely needed to get rid of that part of herself because that is a lot of who she is, is this love of this place. So becoming that wolf was also a lot of removing... I mean, there was no anger, really. The only anger, the only human emotions that really bled out of her at any point was anger at her spouse. It was the only place where that part of her personality would ever leak out. But there was

no anger, there was no hatred, there was no... It was just... And even in the killing, it was just, I need to eat something. It was always very utilitarian and practical. It's really nice to know that even in the primal depth of raw nature itself, your spouse flaking still pisses you off. Oh! Oh! That is so much. What? We had a plan! I've been here for 30 years! You know ahead of time that it was not going to be?

Nope! Fucking no! No, I did not! I was watching your face, and you were just like... I was so angry. It's so great, but I could feel the, how fucking dare you. Yeah, Nashir had an amazing pitch, which was essentially, Nashir was like,

I think the Lawbearer has already internally, by this point in the Calamity, thought of and supports the idea of the Divine Gate. Even though we're still, I think, some fraction of a century away of the Divine Gate. Even though we're still like, I think, some fraction of a century away from the Divine Gate being created, by the time Aeor is dropping and the gods are making the decision of like,

okay, war's going bad, planet's choked, also they're making a weapon to kill us, we're all gonna become mortals, like half of us are gonna become mortals for a second, and the Lawbearer's like, this is a shit show. This is an absolute shit show. And kind of having that thing of like, okay, I could incarnate as a mortal, but

then aren't I just another fucking monkey in the circus? And sends the emissary as already like, I think I need to keep on a hard part of this line. It was great. It would have later been a really good pitch to the Wild Mother of like, now that you've been through this, let's have an honest

conversation about backing off. Yeah. That she would not have done. Yeah, totally. Speaking of Nashir, our three guest players. Let's go. Nick, Nashir, Abu, holy cow. So good! What, what, what?

Just, I mean, just the, ugh. I loved, I loved every moment with them at the table. Talking about, we were talking before about the banality of evil and the complexity, interestingness of good. Every one of those guys pitching their prime deity was, I feel like I was pumping my fist as I was like, yes, good is more interesting! As every one of them, like, I remember Abu being like,

oh, well, someone's gotta be in it, can I be an Aeormaton? Yes. Yeah. It was like so perfect. So perfect, as he's like, and I talked a lot too, because we haven't seen the Archheart a lot in the main campaigns, but you go into that lore, this is the guy, Abu played the character

who is responsible for the cosmology of Exandria because there was peace, there were primordials, there weren't betrayers or primes, there were just the gods, and it was like, okay, I think the primordials are a little bit pissed that we're granting them spells, but we've cooled off, so we're just gonna keep granting them divine spells,

they'll pray to us, we'll get worship. It's a little chaotic with primordials, but we're just gonna keep granting them divine spells. They'll pray to us, we'll get worship. It's a little chaotic with Primordials, but we're fine. And fucking the Archheart goes, I'm gonna give you guys treats while they're not looking. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You guys are great. You guys are actually great.

Oh no, we're all going to war. No more Primordials will be left active on Exandria. Half of our, or almost half of our siblings are confined to hellish torture planes. I don't know, I thought wizards and sorcerers were pretty cool. It was, yeah, it was, I could not believe what an interesting take on that character.

And every note that I was hoping he would hit got hit, and even the guilt of it and that whole, that conversation between the two of you was just like, I went back and watched it like six fucking times. It's so good. That was one of my favorite moments. Oh, yeah. There's like a handful that I would love to, we'll get to discussing, but that was one of them. Oh, my God.

Just like him, maybe, like having the guilt of it. Yeah. Just showing for a second. Just to leave it off for a second. Because I love that he always had this little glimmer in his eye, you know? He just always had a smirk of, I enjoy this. Yeah, leave stuff for a second. Because I love that he always had this little, like, glimmer in his eye, you know? He just always had, like, a smirk of, I enjoy this. Like, I know this is...

Yeah, I'd never show it. Yeah. This is hard, but look what we've done. Look, I'm so proud of them. In his sort of libertine, sensual... Yes. Auras, charismatic aura, the idea that he saw an opportunity in this plan,

which was a very, covert, we must not die, we must stop Eor. The fact that he was like, oh, can I have the people that we were the gods of create me? And be like, yeah, look, they made me! And having that joy. And I talked to him about it a lot, because everything comes out differently in play,

which it should, that's why we play. But he had this great thing where he was like, I don't think, he's like, I think I have to respect the hustle. I love the fucking, I love it. They can kill us, what the fuck? We can't even seem to do that. That's sick, I love it.

And there was a moment where I said, cool, what's the, I was like, if there's a moment where, like, and I said to her, I was like, hey, if you wanna pop off and fight for Aeor, you, like, the lore is unclear, everything's on the table. If you wanna, at the end, go, no, Aeor should have the, you know, the scene from Kill Bill where Michael Madsen is like, she deserves her revenge and we deserve to die, right?

I was like, if you want to get there, go for it. And he was like, I think there is, in the way that we are showing the Primes at their sort of darkest or most villainous, that Saturn devouring his sons, the Oppenheimer of it all, like, he's like, I think that the fun in games and the frivolous, like, I think that the fun in games

and the frivolous, I think they've done well for themselves. When the barrel of the gun turns on me, I won't want to stop having fun. And that thing, and he said that before we even played the first episode. And I was like, oh yeah, because all the philosophy goes out the window when the gun fucking points at you. And you go, I don't want to die.

I don't want to do that. Yeah. And I was like, oh, that is a hypocrisy that if you don't understand, is the most primal understandable hypocrisy. It tastes so good. It tastes so good. They have every right to destroy us,

except for right now. Yeah. That was one of the, like speaking of that moment It tastes so good. They have every right to destroy us, except for right now. Yeah, yeah. That was one of the, like speaking of that moment between he and I when we were doing that, before we started playing, we went around the table and we spoke about like, what is your feeling on this person? What's your feeling on this person?

And just kind of like cement that before we ever played that first episode. And he had said that the Arch Heart was one of the only gods that actually liked the Matron. And it was like, I'm so proud of you. Look at what you've done. You were able to take this gift that I've given you and accomplish such great things.

And my take on that was, fuck you. Fuck you, man. I don't want to be placated. And for that to be her impression of him, to say, ooh, but I deserve more respect than for you to look at me like, look at my little kid just doing such good things. So that moment in the bar of, you want it to end? I can do that for you. That came

from that realization of his... Yeah. The fact that we all understood that you were the only person at the table who we could actually... I mean, when he said, who else am I going to be honest with, I was sitting there going, oh god, that's true for all of us. Yeah. Oh no. Yeah. Oh, everything else has just got too much history and too much there's just too much there, except for you.

I love that it, like, I it was actually Marisha that pitched me Raven first, like the Matron of Ravens first. I was, like, terrified of her. Well, because of all Matron of Ravens first. I was like terrified of her. Well, because of all of the relationships that we've had in the previous campaigns with her. And I was that Raven bitch, you know?

I've always had that kind of thought of her for everything that she's done to our characters or has happened because of her. And I have this like, I just love her so much now. But you did, you played her with the coldness that you knew of her. Like that was so present. That scene with the planetar in the bar,

where he has this heroic, he's like, what does he say, he's like, if you wanted us to serve you, you should not have made us good, and slits his throat, thinking that he's protecting the secret. And then I was like, we're not gonna roll dice in this next scene.

You're like, well, he's dead, right? So he's protecting the secret. And then I was like, we're not going to roll dice in this next scene. You're like, well, he's dead, right? So he's mine. And suddenly going, oh shit. And then he's before the Matron, and you're like, yeah, you can actually talk really big when it's mortal avatars, and now you're here at the end.

And just being like, yeah, he gives it all up. And the fact that you at every moment, or Cassidah showing up and being like, I'm trying to help, and you're like, lady, where is the fucking elevator? You know, like, you're, it's just like, it's like, I don't have time for your life story. I'll see you on the way out, lady.

Like, you're. There's a line, there's a line. Get in the line. Yeah, yeah. It's gonna get long if you don't go right now. Oh god, that was so, I had no idea, either when you were like, then you're in Matron's Realm, when I was like, I am the Matron in this moment. It was so fucking amazing.

Full circle on the other side. And all I could remember is every moment that Matt had been the Matron and seeing that and to get to be that was so cool. I kept thinking of when we do the recordings for the series and when I was watching that, I was like, oh man, I can see a lot of that coming through right now.

Because that's been, I think mostly you have been doing the Matron or no, it's a? Scratch? Yeah. I've been doing, no, who has been doing it? Have I been doing Scratch for Matron? Yeah. I think so. Maybe? Yeah. I've been doing, no, who has been doing, have I been doing Scratch for Matron? Yeah. I think so.

Maybe? Yeah. So it was just like, I can hear the exercise in there. I'm just like, oh God, we've been in a room hearing that voice not be Matt for a while, which is really interesting. I've loved, I loved how when we had that episode two and that split up happened,

it was everyone's sort of bestie, right? Like beauty and death go together, like the Arch Heart, like the ultimate expressions of arcane magic. We have the Everlight and the Dawnfather who go to the hospital and healing the sick. I have five more episodes. I wanted them to be one and a half.

I know, there have been so many, the amount of episodes, we could have sat in there have been so many, the amount of episodes, we could have sat in this story for so long, but it was so, and also the splitting up, talking about you and Nick, and just how well you guys played off each other, and Nick did such, I mean, I love Nick so much. Wonderful.

I loved he had such good delineation between the Dawn baby and the Don father and really like, I feel like more than anybody else like he really had Aiden, you know? Yeah, he really had this sweet and Nick talked about it too, he was like optimism, he doesn't want

Aor to be hurt and he talked about, he was like internally, we never ended up playing the scene, but he was like internally, we never ended up playing the scene, but he was like internally, when Aiden prays kind of to himself, but the Dawnfather for whatever reason wanted to give that mortal avatar more agency and more like live a life,

you are your own person, but you carry the weight of the sun within you. And also that kind of cool thing of like, the power I have will destroy you when it's unleashed. So I'm staying back. I'm letting you take charge. And Nick had talked to me that Aiden was very much like, if we'd ever played the scene, it was very much like, we can do this. We can, we can unmake the weapon and, and get rid of, of the knowledge of how to make it, but leave as many of the people as possible.

We can do it." And he was like, and I think the Dawnfather's response is like, was always gonna be like, I wish you the best, and a time will come when that, we have run out of chances for that way. And this father-son interior relationship of like, we can do it perfectly,

and a voice being like, I love that you think that. Yeah. You know, like, but you guys were so, yeah, I feel like you and Nick were so great, and even, you know, those early scenes, but our sweet little good aligned light gods. The two who really thought it was gonna end any other way. Yeah. but our sweet little good aligned light gods. The two who really thought it was going to end any other way. Yeah. Yeah.

Or just the hope of just, we can end this with the least amount of bloodshed as possible and we can do the right thing and make sure all of us live and get rid of this. And I don't know. and make sure all of us live and get rid of this. I don't know. You guys, as from a weirdly, to the degree that comedy and tragedy have things in common,

you guys set yourself up for the most pain. Yes. Because Nick walked into this with his full chest in the first episode saying, they think that we're not united and that will be their downfall and we will show them a different way, which is the comedy version of being like,

I'm never gonna get hit with a pie. It's never gonna happen. Which is the thing you have, like I really applaud the job you guys did because for this to be heartbreaking, I really applaud the job you guys did, because for this to be heartbreaking, you need the gods who say, we can do this a different way.

Yeah. Literally knowing it's in the book, that it doesn't happen a different way. That's the track, you guys play, and I think for people who are watching this, like, the pain, the discomfort and pain of playing a character who's like, I really think Orpheus is not gonna turn around this time.

I really think this time Atlantis, it's gonna stay above the water. And being like, oh, poor Nick and Ashley going and just face first dead sprint into the wall of reality. It's heartbreaking. You guys did such a good job. Because even playing it, it was, you know,

I know what happens, but we don't know the specifics of it. And there was a part of me that was like, well, maybe we can like, maybe we can teleport everyone out before the city crashes down. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And everybody thinks they all died, but really?

Yes. Yes. And it just felt awful. Like, me, Ashley, I don't like leading or following. I don't like leading or following. Does that mean I like to be unaccompanied and stationary? Correct. Yeah.

So it was so hard. I was so stuck in so many just having to make a decision of what to do, of just like each path that I'm looking at and each decision, none of it ends well. Like someone will get hurt. People are going to die. One of us is going to be hurt. Like it felt, I didn't want to make the decision. Can I ask a question?

Yeah, so in the in the last moment like you guys had talked at break about you were thinking I kind of overheard it You were thinking about Like leaving you were like I don't want to do this i don't want to do this it feels wrong it feels wrong and you were saying like is it possible and you said anything's possible do whatever you want to do the only established lore is the prime deities and betrayer gods work together to destroy aor so having heard that i thought we were going into that final moment and you actually were going to be like i am going to go be with my family.

My children who I have raised and I love in this mortal life, I'm not going to doom them to die. I'm going to be with them. And then you did it. You came and you helped us in the fight. Why? What was the choice? I didn't think that that was going to happen either because I was like, I don't want to make this decision. I'm going back.

I started a family. But then as we were playing through it, I was like, well, that's selfish. Because the whole reason we came here was for this. Right. And these are my family. And this is my family. This is my eternal family. We've been family so much longer.

And I mean, no decision felt right. And someone been family so much longer. No decision felt right. Someone was going to get hurt. I think in that moment there was so much of I feel like the Everlight. Even thinking of the backstory that I had thought about and having the family. I was like, this was such a selfish decision. To have a family to begin with. I was like, this was such a selfish decision, because she knew it's, yes. To have a family to begin with, because at some point, she was going to have to abandon them.

There was a moment at the very beginning, I briefly mentioned this, where we were moving a little fast, where I was gonna just walk by and be like, how, you are an idiot. Yes. How fucking dare you. Which would have been, which was amazing. It's true. Just walking by

and just going, and not only, and you said you'll be right back, you fucking liar. Yes, which so much of it, I was like, why am I saying these terrible things and lying? I will say, we have to be a little bit careful here because if it's cruel to have a family when one day you will have to say goodbye, if that's true, we're all in trouble.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're all in trouble. Specifically knowing that you're going in and this particular, it's true, we're all in trouble. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're all in trouble. Specifically knowing that you're going in, and this particular, this was a very, it was a very, very. It was a complicated choice, but I feel like for the Everlight and how much she, I feel like, something we talked about, I feel like she loves the mortals the most.

And it's just everybody, she just loves so hard and so deeply and wants everybody to have a chance and a second chance. And really got cared for. Enveloped with that mortal life, right? Yeah. That kind of just took over. You also do, well, there's a bunch of funny things here. If Nick was here, I would ask him, because Aiden so clearly, we know that the Everlight's followers are destroyed by the Lord of the Hells.

Yes. And then the Dawnfather comes in and is a cleric of the Everlight. So two of the gods end up being clerics of the other gods, right? And the, but within that too, I often thought, as I was looking at Nick and I was like, that's so sweet and so kind.

And also. Yeah, and also. Yeah, and also. Every fucking time. And also, is there something to the fact that the Everlight shows up with this young Aiden right next to her, and if Aiden's not around and not helping the Everlight, does she maybe get the call and not pick up the phone?

Yeah. You know? That's something that I gotta talk about. I gotta keep an eye on her. Gotta keep an eye on her. She's gonna lose the phone. Yeah. You know? That's something that I gotta talk about. I gotta keep an eye on her. Gotta keep an eye on her. She's gonna lose her nerve. Yeah. You know, like,

because I think we had talked a lot about the Everlight being like, this life makes a lot more sense for what I am than being a god. And at that point, after having all of her followers just decimated, there was so much of like, well, what's the point of me being that anymore?

Yeah, life's not fair, is it? Yeah, life's not fair. And then it was just like, and then lying to the kids, and then I was like, should I be honest with them? But then I was thinking of them like being in therapy

and talking to the therapist and being like, my mom said she's a god, and then being like, oh God, the ego on her. Like, you know, it's like I didn't know how to, I was like, I've made all of the wrong decisions.

Well, but first of all, you do have that beautiful moment of sending that weapon back to Haley and Topher and these two, Purvan is there, who we know doesn't die. Purvan, oh Purvan! And in my head I was like, lore, lore, Purvan doesn't die here, he doesn't die here. And so when you sent the weapon, I was like, Haley and Topher, demigod status and fucking take off.

And then we have like Asha's soldiers there helping as well. I loved Purvan playing, yeah. There's a bloodline of the Everlight now on running around. So cool. And I think that there's, so like the Everlight, and then also at the very end, the last moment, you know, to sort of,

I'll drop a couple lore things here now, too, which is number one, we never got to reveal it. Adamar Cadro and the Magistry and the rulers of Aeor were aware of the Society of Pimes. So Cassidus' secret group of people that were doing the weapon to effect that, they had already been compromised. So in other words, if there had been a moment where the Prime Deities were like,

wait, let's do Cassida's plan, you were already gonna find that the rulership of Aeor was aware and the wizards that had sympathies with the Prime Deities were accounted for, they'd been infiltrated by spies, and that Aeor already was like, they're brilliant engineers, let them keep working, and we'll kill them when the project's over.

Whoa! So that's one. That never got revealed, but numbered. So Cassad was in a lot of trouble even before the gods showed up. And then number two, the whole moment of the Archheart, the whole moment of the Archheart and the Selina's last wish of trying to like,

send that all out. So that was after, so it was, that was sent to, I think, non, she had sort of basically said like the Magistry, like the wizards of Aeor, but teleportation had already been disrupted by Cognouza. Right? Except for the wizards who teleported in, which was a short range teleportation and it worked.

Don't, there was a magic. And it made sense, it worked. And then, but that moment of her trying to get the knowledge out, and then suddenly the Archheart being like, which to me is there's this moment in, weirdly, Barry, the HBO show, where the guy's like, I'm going to tell the cops. And Barry's like, why did you say that to me? Because it means he has to, you know, like. That show's good. It's really good.

And then that last moment with the Lord of the Hells. So the Everlight sends the weapon to her kids, and the Lord of the Hells has the scroll that Cassad has made of the knowledge of the Factor Amalias, and you can either shoot him or this knowledge, and you have this guiding bolt and hit. Yeah, no way she would shoot him. Yeah.

No way. So the Everlight does make some big choices. The Everlight is the one who actually, the Everlight is the god who destroys the last remnant of the Factorum Malleus. Fully takes the moment before Asmodeus, before the Lord of the Hells can teleport away, takes that moment to destroy the knowledge

of the Factor and Malleus forever, or so we think. Wait, Brendan, I don't think you finished your thought about the wish. What happened with the wish? Oh, sorry, the wish. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you. Just talking about those lore wrap-ups at the end,

that wish was really about Selina. A lot of that third episode, I think, was realistic depictions of choices made in panic and horror. Yes. And Selina's choice thinking, oh my God, they're about to destroy the weapon. Maybe like the Aerovox has already been compromised.

Maybe they have some other way of stopping it. So I'm just gonna send the knowledge, send like a seed of the knowledge to every wizard in Aeor. And then in the moment she does it, goes, oh, I've doomed the city. Because now the Archheart is, so even, and at that point, I don't even know that the Prime Deities were not on the path

to destroy the city already at that point. But that certainly was a moment where the Archheart had, you know, the emissary was exploding, he had this giant anti-magic bomb that was going off, Kord was, sorry, the Stormbringer was overhead, and the Archheart basically had to make this decision of what happens to this explosive energy, and goes, well, this weapon now lives in the mind

of every mortal wizard in Aeor. So we got to destroy all of them. Oh my god, what if when I bamfed out that kid, Halas, what if I let the seed live? Because he got a little tidbit, even though he's a kid. He's a kid. Never know. Did he know what it was?

Did he tell anybody? Depends on who that kid is. Depends on who that kid is. Generation to generation. What did I do? Yeah. What did I do? Oof! Yeah, you gotta lock it down.

Oof! All this is to say, the Everlight took a lot of big swings in that episode of getting the weapon to the kid, and then the heartbreaking moment of Cassida being, having her soul close, but still being one of the people that knew how to make the weapon. And still having that moment of, like, and also, I don't know, the idea of like,

seeing what she's seen, would she still wanna help us if she came back? That's why I was just like, I don't know how to talk to her. Try to like. There's no fixing it at this point. There's no fixing it. I was like, I don't know this is a fuck up.

It's not what it looks like. I swear to god this isn't what it looks like. Well, it really is, though. This is not quite what it looks like, and I am so sorry. In a fun back and forth that I was having with Nick specifically about this, when I was talking about what is modern Exandria gonna do?

What is Bell's Hells gonna do? And we were talking about do you stand against the gods or do you have sympathy for them? Nick said something along the lines of like, the gods had to stop. They were gonna kill the gods. And I was like, correction. They were gonna have the power to kill the gods. And I was like, correction, they were gonna have the power to kill the gods.

And there's every reason to believe they would use it, there's every reason to believe they would have it. But I wanted to be, the thing I said is, for my, whatever the moral calculus is, it's important to understand, mortals are not even allowed to have the potential to harm the gods. And I was like, that matters to me.

Yeah. It's a stay in your lane. Stay in your lane. Yeah. Except for you. Except for me. Except for me. I would also like to discuss, last but certainly not least, the prologue. Why don't we discuss a little bit

about our fractals of life? Yes. Yeah. I pitched that to Matt, I talked to Matt about that, And we discuss a little bit more. Our fractals of life. Yes. Yeah. I pitched that to Matt. I talked to Matt about that. And I was like, I think this really matters. I think it really matters to see this, to understand,

because the, I was like, I know that this story is going to end with the destruction of Aeor and an alliance between the Primes and the Betrayers. And the second you have an alliance with the Lord of the Hells or the Crawling King, we've said something so profound.

What's so funny to me is I feel like if I was a little Exandrian in this basement of Aeor watching this recording, the most important information happens in the space in between the prologue and the arriving in Hawkshill, which is just the truce, the truce. And to me, that truce is explained by the prologue. It's explained by who these people are.

Which is such a bummer that Bells Hells doesn't get to see that. They don't see that. Is that established? That's established. Bells Hells doesn't see the prologue. Bells Hells doesn't see what happened after the fall of Eor.

Oh my god. So they only see from the moment. Only what was recorded in the city. Cause that gives so much. Oh, was it? Did we spoil that? It's fine, but yeah. Barely.

It's a little baby spoiler. It's a baby spoiler, gotcha. Wow. Yeah. Wow. So you don't see those sweet little infinite, ephemeral, unconstrained, totally untouched. Well, yeah, that was really important to me.

And the idea, too, of how are these beings a family? And it was sort of like, the Lord of the Hells is just one of an infinite number of possibilities for what this proto-being was. And also, the, like, torture and hellfire is, the thing that is the, like, how do I phrase this?

The idea of hellfire and hellfire are about as different as two things can be. We tell stories about horrifying shit all the time, and that's fine because an idea is an idea. And so the idea that all these betrayer gods in their idealized forms, it's like, no, there's no contradiction here. We're all family.

We're all ideas floating around. We're all these motes of light, these endless songs. Nothing's become real yet. Everything is possibility. Um, and yeah, the, the heart that's another thing to me of like divine horror is that idea of fall of Arcadia, man. It was the fall of fucking Arcadia. Yeah. The minute I was in there, I'm like, I was, that was, that was the minute you began minute you began that, that was my first thought was, oh no, we're going to have to become things, aren't we? This is not gonna go well.

That was seamless, by the way. The way you did that. Thank you. It was so impressive. Oh, thank you. To take the actions that they did and turn them into what you you become. Well, that's the, I mean, when you open the box,

Schrodinger's cat is now alive or dead. And when you become real, all of the things you could have been are dead. And I mean, that's like, if you want to get into like philosophical horror, that idea of like, as you grow up, all of these paths I didn't take, which vastly outnumber the path I took, fall away,

and I become more and more specific. It was the first real decision that each of us made. It was the first, including the betrayers, it was the first actual decision of their creation was the, like, now this is who you are forever because you decided to decide something. And it was fascinating watching that happen. Of just, like, and kind of accidentally with us. Yeah. It was just watching that kind of become,

oh, God, we're actually making ourselves in this very bizarre way. Matt is so fucking cool. And the idea, when I pitched that to him, he's just so fucking cool, man. And the idea of being like, yeah, hey, do you mind if we all get some spray paint cans and go to the very beginning and tag a wall?

You know, like, and every single person's, like every choice. And especially like the idea of like, cause you were not playing your own little mode of light. And the idea of playing something that looks back and goes like, what is that? And all written from the beginning, a fascination with. Oh, I kind of would have liked to see what that part was.

I also love the wrinkle it throws in Prime versus Betrayer, that the Betrayers are doing these very heroic things. They did. And your Prime is, in this moment of chaos, is just suddenly fascinated by the specter of unbeing. Yeah.

And sweet, oh, the Everlight, just holding on to the Lord of the Hells. And... Yeah, just trying to protect and save him. Just trying to protect and save him. Just trying to protect and save. And the... I love... Protect. Yeah. They're sweet.

But what did you do? You hugged him, right? I was just trying to surround to be a protection or a shield. Yeah. Because he was just being burned so badly. Yeah. And healing him at the same... trying to sort of off-put the, what was happening to him. Yeah, and that his, like, his first experience of the reel was pain, right?

Yeah. And your first experience of the reel was trying to help somebody. And it's like, and then, oh, Tal, that choice you said, is this because I wanted something? Ugh! Ugh! Is this because I, you said in the prologue. Is this because I you said, is this because I wanted something? Oh! Is this because I, you said in the prologue. Is this because I want it?

Is this because I wanted something? When I rewatched it again, I feel like I didn't hear that. And when I heard it, I was like, oh! Oh, yeah. She's got damage. It's so cosmic. Because when you said, is because I wanted something, yeah, there's a plain English description of that.

But I think the operational, yeah, the operational is not unwanted. It's not like, oh, desire's bad. No, no. Is it because I wanted something? Yeah. Not everything. I wanted something.

Yeah, we didn't have a something yet. We didn't have a something, and there was no such thing as something. Now we have a something, and something comes with nothing, and something comes with a lot, and something has got borders. Yeah, nature is vast, but it is not infinite. No.

There's a fixed number of trees, there's a fixed number of leaves, there's a fixed number of bugs. The board is only so big. It's something. Yeah, it is. You got something! I did, for better or for worse.

Shit. Hey, everybody. Hey. There's something on the teleprompter. It's time for a question from the tower. We're doing the tower a little differently in this special four-sided downfall. Nice and done.

The tower has been temporarily replaced by Kerplunk. Each little marble has a number written on it. And we're going to pull sticks until at least one marble falls out. Then we read the number on, see there's a little umbrella on the teleprompter and it keeps getting hit. Then we'll read the number on the marble aloud and Danny reads us the corresponding question.

But if multiple marbles fall out, we pick one marble and leave the rest. Got it. So do we all go up to the tower now? I feel like I was reading it and had no idea what I was just saying. What, but, okay. Because at the end of the show,

whoever made the most marbles fall or made the whole thing go kerplunk, they get the consequence. The what? The consequence. The consequence. The consequence. There are consequences to our actions, Brennan. Don't you know that?

I'm about to sprint out of this studio. I'm about to pop up. Get up there, go get it. Not here. You're first. Go get it. Number one, number one. What is going on?

So you gotta, you gotta. You pull a stick and then give it a quarter turn. I don't know how this works. And then he gives it a turn and then another person goes out. Yeah, you pull a stick and then give it a quarter turn. I don't know how this works. And then he gives it a turn and then another person goes up. You pull a stick and then give it a quarter turn. That won't help you. Wait, but how do you know?

No, it's okay. I pull a stick and then give it a turn? We all need to go up there because it's gonna take more than one stick to get a marble to fall. You pull a stick and then, well, I'll show you how to. Keep pulling until one or more marbles drop. Yeah, but do we each go up there and pull? Yeah, so all of us have to go.

Pull some more. One at a time still, one at a time still. All right, well you go next, Bulu. Just keep pulling, Brennan, until one or more Wait, I'm so confused. Brennan has to make one fall. He's got to make a marble fall. Okay, we must make but a single marble fall. Or a bunch of them, it doesn't matter.

If a bunch fall, then... You have consequences. Make a whole bunch fall, Brennan. We're gonna count them up at the end to see. Wow, this is hateful to watch. Little motherfucker, I gotcha. Oh, you got one marble? That is perfect.

Don't come for me, okay? I am fucking ready. Oh, my God. Come on. Wait, so now you have to turn it? Now you got to get that marble out so we can read that question. All right. It is number seven, and Brennan is number one.

So now I'm going to move this. I'll control the twisting so it's one less thing you guys have to do. Oh, wait. That's not on me. Nope, nope. This one goes for Brennan. Okay. Here we go.

One counts for me? Yes. Y'all run a rigged game. Oh we know. Oh we know. Don't worry. If I do it again to anybody else, those marbles will be for them. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Not that I'll mess up again. So this is from at indoor underscore selkie on Instagram. Oh, I love selkies. Can you talk more about your safety practices? What do you do to protect each other's mental health and emotions when the themes you're exploring in game are potentially triggering or potentially a note topic for someone? How do you do this without spoilers for the players? That actually did come up when we were doing character creation. Oh. Mm-hmm. triggering or potentially a note topic for someone. How do you do this without spoilers for the players? That actually did come up when we were doing character creation.

Oh. To decide how far our choices, what themes we were willing to explore. In the conversation about the betrayer gods, I was like, hey, some of these gods are really fucking nasty. And there's a distance when they're NPCs that is going to make it a lot easier to play through this game. The number one safety tool... Well, first of all, safety tools are awesome. I hope that if you are watching this and you have a table,

you are using them at your table and you're discussing with your table what to use. I would say the main safety tool here is getting on the page at the outset about what the themes are going to be. As funny as it is, a mood board is a big fucking safety tool. Comparisons to other media and what kind of effect or tone or mood you're going for are a huge safety tool. You know, I think if I had my, I think there's amazing tools like lines and veils and having discussions and X cards and having like, are you okay check?

I think for us, a lot of us are professional performers and so we know that there can be intense emotion at the table and that's actually a positive for people to have those experiences. But I think that proactive is almost always better than reactive. So having a proactive discussion about what you are going for

and clarifying what you're trying to achieve is I think going to end up creating a lot more safety and trust at the table than saying, who knows what we're here doing, but if we stumble into a problem area, here's how we react to that. Does that make sense? Yeah, I think having really clear,

these are the lines on what we're trying to achieve is huge. And then lots of check-ins. Yeah, we had lots of check-ins. Yeah, we did. How's everybody doing? You okay? Yeah. At least I'll say for the cast,

we're at the point now where we can make eye contact. On the very rare occasion that anything's weird, it is very, It's been a long time. And that setting up the expectations at the beginning of the game was especially for a game like this. Yeah. I also feel like off of what you said, because we are performers, I think there is also that level of, I think we like going, I will speak for myself, I like going to those dark places and being able to explore those emotions that maybe I don't feel comfortable doing with in real life,

comfortable enough to explore in real life sometimes. So sometimes when you're performing, you're like, oh, I can hide behind this. Well, in any acting class that you've ever taken in your entire life, one of the first things they drill into you and they drill into hard, is get comfortable with being uncomfortable. You can't coast through a career as an actor going, like, oh, that feels weird. I don't want to audition for that one. I don't want to feel that.

That one doesn't. You're like, no, no, no, no, no. If you want to get the work, you gotta get real good about being in a place that doesn't necessarily feel great. That's one of the reasons that I love this medium and acting in general is like, in real life, I hate conflict. Hate it. I hate feeling bad, I hate being sad. Like, who doesn't hate that?

And so I, as Laura, do my utmost to stay positive almost all the time, you know? Like, that's my reaction to things. And so it's nice to have a time when you can just fucking be a shithead, or you can argue, or you can, you know, try to make somebody else uncomfortable. I like that. It's really... It's finding players and a DM that are comfortable enough to go there with you. Exactly.

Or not. Trust. And trust. And trust. I think that's a really significant thing because I've had a lot of questions over many years about safety tools. And I think that safety tools are excellent.

And I really hope that as people utilize safety tools, they don't utilize them outside of the context of trust, community, building relationships. There are like, I think that there is a, there's a lot to be said for knowing people over a long period of time. I would not have been comfortable, I think, coming in and running this game

if I had not come in and run Calamity or come in and played in the Elden Ring one. This would not be a great, and I think that it's okay. People sometimes want to go to a really dark place. That's great. It's okay to say, oh, I don't want to do that with this group of people because I don't have a level of trust that's there. Even if you have safety tools, I think it's okay to be like,

actually, in addition to safety tools, I also need community. I need to have a group of people that I have spent not just quality time with, but like quantity time with. I need people that I've like dicked around on my phone with, like that we've been around each other that much that you kind of have those relationships and that kind of sense of community. And you know if you're going to cross a line with that person. Yeah. Yeah.

And you know that other people at that table have your back, that they're going to protect you. Yes. Yes. And everybody understands, again, everyone understands what they're going for and understands the positive feelings that come from going into these places. So everyone is, no one's trying to be a shit about it. Everyone's here to have a good time. Everyone's here to have a good, bad time. Yeah.

Yes. That's really. We literally said this is tragedy and horror, and, you know, it was all of the, you know, when I look back at it, that first document that was, like, setting the tone for the game, every single depiction of a character on that mood board was someone having a rough one.

A real bad day. A real bad day. And it was, like, such a... We knew the assignment. I always prefer tragedy. We knew the assignment. Yeah. My DVD collection is very sad.

I really thought we were going to be able to save the city. Yeah, I just really thought- Gosh golly. We just needed three Nat 20s in a row. That's all that was needed. Three Nat 20s in a row and a nap. There was, this is so, this has nothing to do with anything, but I just watched the Gene Wilder documentary remembering

Gene Wilder because I love him um and he told the story that was so sad he was like when I was a kid my mom was really sick she had a really bad heart condition and he said the doctor grabbed my arm when he was leaving and he was like don't make your mother angry or you'll kill her and he's like I so he's like from that on, I just tried to make her laugh, but then he said, I wanted to play characters where I just had emotions, where I could get angry and let those moments out. I found it really cool. His performance in Little Prince, if anyone remembers him playing the fox. He plays the fox in an original, one of the many adaptations of The Little Prince

that was made, and it was so, it's an interesting chapter in the book. It is so tragic. And watching him play the fox and this whole conversation between him and the kid is, there's something haunting about it. And I really, God, that actor. There's, I don't like to, you know,

stories are beautiful all on their own. You don't want to be overly mechanistic and just reduce things to their utility. But that being said, I think that one of the things that makes me feel the most positive or in love with storytelling is just that life will give you hard feelings and bad days and raw emotions.

And how naked and vulnerable and afraid I would be of the hardest days in my life if I had not had years and years of stories preparing me for those moments. Yes, yes, that is such a wonderful point. Yeah, I really, really go like, oh! You know, like sitting on a curb in New York, crying because I don't know how I'm going to make rent. And I go like, boy, this is hard! Like when Frodo had to take the rent! You have that moment! It's so... Frodo had to take his ring and you killed that moment. It's so, it feels silly.

But you know, the amount of times in my life, I had times in my life, and again, it's like, the human reserve of will and the power of the human spirit, I fully believe in that totally. And on top of that as well, there have been times where I look at that quote of like, like, I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish I never lived to see, you know,

like I wish these things had not happened. And Gandalf going, you know, oh, so do all who live to see such times. And you just go like, you have those moments where you go, oh, that, like, I do need to feel these feelings. I do need to know what it's like to stand up and be wrathful. I do need to know what it's like to stand up and be wrathful. I do need to know what it's like

when you have fallen short of something. I do know what it's like when you are betrayed, when you fall in love, when you are triumphant, when you are defeated. I mean, just having lived the occasionally way too interesting life, watching in moments of real darkness, watching who handles it well and who doesn't, was always fascinating to me as a young person, of being, this is really bad right now, and it's really interesting who is getting out of this

okay. There is definitely, I'm a deep believer in the triumph and tenacity of the human soul, but I'm also a deep believer in survivorship bias. So yeah, I've seen a lot of, part of that is also that the people that did not prepare themselves go down fast and hard and do not get back up. And it is interesting seeing the people who do get back up.

And some of it, not all of it, often comes with, I've seen people really attached to stories as a way of getting through rough times. That's how I do it. Lulu, pick some sticks. On that horrid note. On that sad note. No one's ever going to hit me with a pie.

Did we say that on camera or off camera? At least not on camera, I think. Oh, thank god. On camera. Dun dun dun dun dun. Okay. I believe in you. I feel like you planned this, Brennan.

Like, you really looked at it and went, where's the marble going to fall? Y'all wanted me to get up and go first, and now? I know him too well. He definitely would. Okay. Give him the opportunity to cause drama. Oh, the red. Your second red. Very interesting. You're opening with Brissini's Gambit.

I'm not going to do anything! Ha ha ha ha ha! I'm a big fan of... This is going to be one. This is going to be multiple ones. No, it's going to do something. There you are! No! That gonna do something. There you are! No, that's a bomb! That's just one more than Brennan. Yeah.

Well. That's true. Pick one. Pick one. Wait for the turn. Number five. Number five. Can I turn it so that I feel the responsibility?

Sure. I agree with that. Oh, so we're changing up the rules. Oh, so we're literally... Oh no, do you... Oh, so we're literally. Oh no, do you? Oh, so we're literally, oh no. Should we always let the air in? Change it up, make it.

I need you to understand. No, no, no, absolutely. When I say things happen, Laura Bailey can do whatever the fuck she wants. I'm fair. All of you are watching this. All of you are watching this at home. Who's the matron, bitch?

You are watching. Who's the matron? This is a circus. This is a carnival. I changed the rules. All right, fair. But also, I'm looking at this. Like I said. But also, I'm looking at the teleprompter and it says have two to three people pull a block. Taliesin, you go ahead and I'll sit this one out.

Wait, we gotta answer this question first. Sorry. That's right, there's a point to all this. I know how it is. Other than masochism, there is a Magnus-ageism. Arden B. would like to know, is there a non-magical item from your character's past that they still keep with them?

You may answer for downfall or for any of your characters across the games. Brennan, any of your NPCs. Or if you want to talk about any old character you've ever played. Let's stick with downfall. Let's stick with downfall. Yeah. Amaris's coat.

Amaris's coat. It's really lovely. Yeah. I mean. It's not magical. It's not magical. No, but it's special and comforting. Just due to the nature of my character,

I mean, not really. I also was trying to think, was it just me and the Archheart who had actually quietly built temples to themselves? Yeah, I think so, yeah, yeah, yeah. We're the only two who are like, I'll have a few worshipers, thank you. Thank you. How can nature not have worshipers?

Exactly. Yeah. Which is why I have my little posse with me. Yeah, they didn't, they were not really object-oriented. They were not, other than the staff, which there was not really, even the clothing was, honestly, it was because something had to be,

they had to wear something, and it was a gift, so they didn't even have to think about it. It was just, it was a thing bestowed upon them by a worshiper, and they're like, that'll do. It was, it's very, there was no, they were aware that they were not long for this and that that was not what they were preparing for. Certainly not to fall in love with anything.

There was a great, I loved that so much. And I loved, I mean, you had the crate and the wagons and the food and everything that was non-magical coming up, which I did really love in terms of, I remember there was some great world-building thing that an old teacher of mine had, because someone pitched, was like, and this is a city, and it's the city where they,

the rich all live, and they don't allow any of the poor into the city. And the professor was like, don't allow the poor in? Who the hell washes their clothes? Who's feeding them? And he was like, rich people only exist because there's a hundred to a thousand poor people making them rich. And you go like, and I was like,

oh, that's fucking really true. And then you have like, so the idea of Aeor's Downfall being people with grain, like a sun god with grain and a nature goddess with fruit. Yeah, literally was the, I'm keeping a couple of these apples, and then literally just using that to crack the fucking,

yeah, just crack the cement open. Apples. We had talked about Matron just having a cache of stuff. I didn't ever take advantage of that, but I loved the idea that she had lived this mortal life before and probably accumulated a good bunch of shit that she just kind of stashed away. Yeah.

And then when she was reborn, she went, ah, yeah, that's right. You John Wick'd it? You John Wick'd it? Where you opened up the cement at the bottom and opened up the case? Yeah.

Did we ever establish that you were your own warlock, Patriot? That was the other thing. We never explained how the classes ended up working, the choice there. We had a long conversation because it was like,

do you come back as a wizard? You were a wizard before. And you literally were like, well, I want, you were like, in her second life, the matron would want, her second mortal life, she would want to not work as hard as she worked in the first fucking life. And I was like, the idea that Amira, as a little baby,

just has a contract from the goddess of Death waiting and be like, it's the most favorable warlock contract of all time. It's like, you- I'm going to give myself. I'm going to, I like, you basically just created a trust of your arcane power and you're like, the beneficiary of this trust is me. Come on, take care of this game.

I'm a genius. She's granting herself spells. So I kept mine on the least magic humanly possible. I just wanted to be nice and flat. Where did she store all her stuff? I'm not telling you. Okay, fine. Go and pick some sticks.

Okay. Secrets, secrets. Hell yeah. Here we go. Okay, fine. Go and pick some sticks. Okay. Secrets, secrets. Hell yeah. Here we go. Pick your sticks. I hate all of this. See, we're screwed now towards the end. Yeah.

Now I'm realizing I should've picked way more sticks. Yeah. Well, that's the point of the game is that you're not supposed to pick. But you started it, so. Yeah. There you go. The whole thing is that you go until a marble drops and it depends on how many drop. Yeah. There you go. The whole thing is that you go until a marble drops

and it depends on how many drop. Yeah. But someone's gonna drop it. You're gonna have to do it again. I'm gonna have to pull it, I guess. Oh, shit, how many just came out? Three. Oh.

Okay. Seemed like so much more. Yeah, didn't it though? 26. 26. Doot doot doot doot doot doot doot doot doot doot doot. You are the host. You're running it.

You don't have to ever play it. I don't have consequences. So this is fun. That's not true. Particularly for downfall, if you're thinking current characters being downfall. From Dress, which NPC from a previous campaign would you want your current character to meet?

That's not fair. Thinking about downfall. Who would you want your downfall characters to meet from a previous campaign? From a previous campaign, yes, sir. And again, you may choose any of your NPCs. Are there really NPCs whenever you're playing them? They're being played. I'm going to shut up. The Matron's going to meet all of them, eventually. She's the only goddess who does. Oh, shit! They're being played. I'm gonna shut up. Doesn't, the matron's gonna meet all of them eventually. She's the only goddess who does.

Oh shit! She is the only goddess, the matron's the only goddess who meets everybody. Yeah. Everybody else picks and chooses their favorites. Oh man, part of Ash's issue with everyone but you. Like in the whole of everything or like the characters that we've played? I can't remember. It doesn't matter, in the whole of everything or like the characters that we've played?

I can't remember. It doesn't matter. In the whole of everything. Oh. So who would they ever like to meet out of everyone? Our version of the characters? Yeah, our character. Being downfall, yes. Keyleth. Yeah?

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, like hopeful Keyleth? Keyleth. Yeah? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, like hopeful Keyleth? Yeah. Honestly, can we... Or like Keyleth been through some shit, Keyleth? Keyleth been through some shit. I feel like that would be a very...

There's also a reason that Asha was Asha. As Ashaari was definitely... Oh! Oh! I was thinking, was there a connection with Ashton? No, no, no, it's Ashaari. Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. Ashaari. I love that. was there a connection with Ashton? No, no, no, I'm so sorry. Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay.

Yasha! I love that. So there was a very quiet reverence there. Cool. Yeah. Just name somebody hot. I mean, I know it's one of my characters. No, no, no, no. I'm gonna choose it.

I was thinking Yasha. Ooh! Because I feel like she needed the most help. And I feel like she would want to be like, okay, let's give you a little bit more happiness and care and comfort for a little bit. She needs a hug and hot cocoa. She needs a hug and a hot cocoa, yeah.

Yeah. So I'm going to pick Yasha. Love that. What about you? Mm-hmm. This is so funny because it's like the mixture of NPCs and PCs. You know what came to me? I was thinking about it and I was like,

oh, there's so many different, like the characters that I've played, like if you think about them as, who are the characters that I've played, if you think about them as, who are the characters that I've played more than once? So Purvan was in Calamity and in Downfall. Lord of the Hells was in Calamity and in Downfall. And people will know this because of the captions, you don't know it yet, Bolo was in Calamity and in Downfall.

Bolo's the greatest from Calamity. The Silver Dragon was Bolo was in Calamity and in Downfall. Bolo's the greatest from Calamity. The silver dragon was Bolo. No! Bolo was a dragon, confirmed. Oh, shit! Bolo was a dragon, confirmed, yes? I'm so glad it's Bolo. There was a moment, so that dragon had the,

I'm gonna name Bolo, that silver dragon had that accent in the final battle, and also at the end was like, I had the moment that I think everyone else missed, had that accent in the final battle. And also at the end was like, I had the moment that I think everyone else missed. She was like, I die and no one remembers my name. And then died. Cause I was like, I was like, I was like, I thought someone would clock Bolo

in an earlier, more fun part of the combat. It is not the time to breathe Bolo energy. This is not, you know, sometimes you're in a conversation and you're like, I missed my window to tell that anecdote. Yes, yes, yes! All the time. That's every fucking time. Yeah, I missed my window.

So the idea of being there and the Everlight like, my family, and someone being like, by the way, you guys don't have context, but actually I watched some crazy, I've been at two Flying Cities crashes, that's crazy. Great, waka waka. Second time is apparently not the charm. I had a nickel for every time. Who would Bolo want to meet?

Who would Bolo want to meet? Not the Dawnfather. Yikes! But you know what I actually thought about was across those different PCs, I actually, the thing that I think would be the most meaningful, the scene I would most want to see

would be an NPC that I played in Calamity. I think I would want to play Vespin Cloris meeting the Matron of Ravens, Meeting the woman who inspired his greatest failure. Yeah. And being like, I couldn't do what you did. I think I would want to see that. That's rough, buddy. That's rough, buddy.

That's rough, buddy. Oh, yeah, I'm looking at your work. Yeah, no, that. I see why it didn't happen for you. I see why it didn't happen for you. Also, that was her point. Yeah, totally. She's like, yeah, I could have told, that. I see why it didn't happen for you. I see why it didn't happen for you. Yeah, you wanted. Also, that was her point. Yeah, totally.

She's like, yeah, I could have told you that. I could have told you that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think that would just be very heartbreaking to be like, why couldn't, just the thought of. Why you, why not me? Why you, why not me?

I think just there's something very, very heartbreaking and that also, And again, also because Vespin was a total narcissist, megalomaniac, Age of Arcanum wizard who thinks like, well, if she did it, then I can certainly, you know, like totally all of those tragic flaws. But fundamentally his plan, he'd spent a lifetime, at least talking to Matt, like the malconvoker of it all, he'd spent a whole lifetime thwarting devils and was like, wouldn't it be great if the Lord of the Hells was not so destructive?

Wouldn't it be better to get rid of one of these ancient evils and then someone who understands mortals would be in charge of the hells, which is a really, which is a bad idea, but not completely. I'd see where the heart is. The heart is not, yeah. So the idea of him meeting the matron from Downfall. Maybe if a more compassionate person were flying this plane. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.

As opposed to the pilot. Maybe we just need someone nicer. It's like, I'm okay if he's kind of a dick. Maybe we just need someone nicer. It's like, ooh! I'm okay if he's kind of a dick. He knows what that dial does. He knows how to fly it, though. He knows what that dial is. He's a bit of an ass, but he does... He can land it.

He does know the dial. If not that, Purvan meeting Vox Machina and being like, I want to tell you, all the people that are named Purvan in my family, it's a very common name. It's an extremely common name. Foot Pervon. Pervon, yeah. Uncle Pervon, my cousin Pervon. Pervon the Second.

Bailey. What? How about you? How about me what? Who would you like to meet? Oh, well, who would I like to meet? As the matron. Early, early, not at the end, obviously. Preview. Lewdness. Ooh! That's juicy.

That's sexy. That's a good answer. Wow. That's really juicy. Damn. Maybe we can make that happen. Maybe we can juicy. Damn. Maybe we can make that happen. Yeah. Maybe we can make that happen. Maybe we can make that happen.

Oh. All right. Thank you, Endor Selkie, Arden B, and Dress. And if you have a question for our Tower of Inquiry, you can enter it at critrole.com slash tower. It's time to slide into the deep dive, where our wonderful lore keeper Danny Carr serves us juicy quandaries for our mind throats. Goddamn. Wow.

I don't like the way that was phrased. None of that felt good. I did not like that. I don't want to answer these questions. Sorry, y'all already mostly did, so this whole round don't want to answer these questions. Like it was written by Perilous. Don't worry, y'all already mostly did, so this whole round's gonna be like 15 minutes. Oh, yes!

Y'all already answered a ton of them. Open wide your mind throat. I'm stuck. Open wide. Yeah, I'm stuck. There we go. That one's cool. I love that.

The throat of the mind is the deepest of all. We still have so much to get through, so let's start. Taliesin? I'm going with my spiky cup. All right. Should've brought my glasses. What do you think of the theory that Ludinus is Halas? There's a theory? There's a theory? I didn't know that. I thought that.

Nah. Nah. That would be so appropriate. I guess it could be. I mean, it could. But that was a fluke. I just felt like saving Halas. I wanted for the matron to show that spark that she gave to Vax.

I wanted that moment of her being like, feeling merciful. And that's why I took him. In my heart, I hope it's not true. Yeah. Because one of my favorite truisms of the world is that you can't erase a... There is no erasing a problem by erasing a city.

You're just kicking the can down. This is not a system that actually works. It's just kicking the can further down the road, and this was inevitably going to come back to bite them, and not just because of one kid. There's just... It's not a way that actually works to deal with these things. So yeah, I like the idea that it was even something else.

Like it was some other point of chaos. Yeah. So that's mine. But you know, we'll see. All right, I'll go. How was it for the Everlight to work with the Lord of the Hills after he betrayed her? It was rough.

It was real rough. It really sucked, walking in and seeing him there. But also, because she's the Everlight, there's still love there. Like, that's never going to disappear, of, like, wanting there to be a second, what she thinks is, like, a second chance for him to be, to give him redemption. In your opinion, do you think she has

just, like, a bottomless well of love and forgiveness? That's what I feel. You can't ever wrong her enough that she would say, I abandon you. Yeah, I think to a fault. Well, I mean you. I think to a fault. Well, I mean, if it wasn't a bottomless well, would you be the Everlight?

Right, yeah. You would be something else. Yeah. The goddess of 11 chances. Forever! Yes. Wow, you guys almost caught it. The insight check and the detect thoughts on Arcadia,

right in that first scene in the chamber, I was sweating. I was like, they're onto me. Shit, they're gonna be. They're onto me. It was crazy. Yeah, the whole thing of, and the convenient timing of a castriel, the angel.

So it was basically that the Lord of Hells had bamboozled everyone earlier that day, essentially. Tipped off the solar. There'd been rumblings for a time, but it was getting the solar to Aeor, doing all this stuff, setting all these things in motion, and then sealing Arcadia. So that was the actual form of the Knowing Mistress, that she had been living in Aeor for a long, long time,

but just sealed her in that gem and handed her to the solar. So wait, I actually, Dani and I were talking about this earlier. So he was doing the illusion from the get-go. From the get-go. That's what I thought too! See, I got confused. I swear I thought you and I had a conversation

where you said that he switched in the hospital, but. No, no, no, no. Okay, that was a Lorekeeper got confused moment. Go, go, go, go, go. All good. There was a Spitzley member. A lot of info to keep in your mind throat. Yeah, right?

Yeah, my mind throat is full of information. Yeah. I hate it so much. I love it. So gross. You wrote it. It was in your prompter, so now we're doing it. It's mind throat o'clock.

Oh. Answer a question now we're doing it. It's Mindthroat O'Clock. Oh. Oh. Answer a question! Stop talking about it. Stop talking about the Mindthroat. Go count a question. What was the main philosophy you wanted to imbue your god with? How do you think Nick, Abu, and Nashir would answer?

I think we've covered a lot of this, but. That is for all. That is for all, that's for everybody. Yeah, we kind of did. We covered that already at the beginning. Yeah. I think the answer for Nick, Abu, and Nashir from the conversations I had,

Nick specifically wanted an optimism and this impossible hope that was going to be dashed. And he also wanted a level of pragmatism. He wanted the thing of a non-ideological ideology. He wanted to be the god that was like, hey, we all have to work together and we all believe different things. So that means some of us are gonna be right and wrong

from time to time, right? We're all doing this together. And I think that Abu had this beautiful, hedonistic, life-affirming philosophy and also one of like of maybe our time will pass of not being grasping until the very, very end when he did not want to die. Or you get the R chart when they did not want to die.

And I think Nashir had this intense, contractual law above all else of like our agreements. Like it doesn't matter if you're nice or good or evil or whatever, it matters if you are reliable. If you do what you say you're going to do, if you follow the rules and hold fast to the agreements you've made.

Consequences. Consequences. Consequences. Yeah. What you got? We'll find out. Okay. How does the Matron feel about taking part in this new family?

Does she feel closer to any of her new siblings now? Getting to know. Getting to know all. Who does she like the most? Oh, she loves you. At least me playing her. Me. But we talked about this before,

like she already thought you were great. You were one of the few that kind of, that didn't make her feel welcome at the table, but you know, didn't shun her as much as everybody else. And I think we had a moment, me and the Dawnfather there at the end. She was very of the mindset of resenting him, of just feeling like, why should I pay you respect? Why should I look at you as the head of this family? And then through the course of it, seeing his unending loyalty to keeping it together,

I think she ended up respecting him more for that. Because having come from mortals into this new realm of understanding. She did understand that there was so much more that her and her mortal life didn't get. I think she's one of the few that understands both perspectives fully. So yeah, she did come away with more of a respect, but also, I don't want to give anything

else away. That's all. End it. Whoa! That's bull! Well, do we ask another question, y'all? Yeah! Pick in there. Go a couple rounds. All right, all right, all right. All right, oh boy.

How did Asha end up feeling about the emissary? Can you tell us about the journey of her feelings towards him and the law bearer during the journey? Deeply insulted. Hurt. Yeah, it was definitely, it felt like a vicious betrayal for quite a while. Because we had talked about how we were going to play these gods, and there was definitely, early on, before the game, and I kind of enjoyed the way that the Wild Mother definitely turned into as we were having these conversations of, she's great, she's a bit much.

Everyone's kind of like, oh, she's a lot. And, you know, the two of them, that marriage clearly works, but wow. It's a lot of like, yeah, it's a lot of like, you know, there's a lot of like, you know, just handling each other. Yes. So definitely having a real, and kind of taking out these frustrations on the emissary, not really thinking much about what the emissary was or who they were,

just kind of treating them a bit like a target for their anger. Poor Emondary. Yeah, it took a little while for that to change. That was definitely... She couldn't hear. When he was communing with the law-abiding, she couldn't hear that. She just saw him staring at the image and was just like, don't. Fuck you, not now, no. What an absolute bullseye. Nashir, what Nashir took on by playing a character that inhuman and sweet and childlike, but monstrous.

And just as a player, so honorable, being like, I'm not a god, i don't get the god powers like and and then just like speaking and then it's like oh like you've been so reserved and then every time you open your mouth it's a banger it's like oh well that's the perfect thing to say nashir crushed it it's so funny that nashir played a character like that who couldn't speak articulately, but Nasheer was one of the most articulate of us with the strongest opinions about what the gods were and weren't, and just had such beautiful ideas when we were doing the chariot creation. That's why it was so surprising when he came out and was the Emissary instead. What?!

Later pointed out, and I hadn't even thought about it, the scene on the train. He was like, that was the only contact with what was essentially his mother that he ever had had. I'm like, oh, that's so dark. Oh, I don't like that at all. Now I feel like a bad person. I gave him a hug when the game was over, and I was like, you're so amazing. He had this sadness about the emissary and said that in that moment at the end, when I got to speak to him as the matron guiding him on, that he never got to meet his mom like that all he wanted was to be with his mother oh god I wish I could have given you that moment also I just to just to talk about Nashir just for a second longer I don't know if it came up exactly in the game itself, but his idea was that the law bearer specifically

made the emissary of ice and stone because it felt like having a child with nature, with the wild bear, with the wild mother, wild bear. Is that their ship name? I've just come up with it. It's funny because ice is a property of the natural world which creates crystals

that are like perfectly the order meeting nature. That's very romantic. Later. Yeah.

This year just so wonderful. So the emissary that was everything. Well speaking of all the wonderful casts that we had, how was it working so closely with Nick Marini as Tristan Aiden?

I love Nick so much, and he was such a joy to pair up with, and we had such great Zoom convos. Did you have Zoom convos? Yeah, we did. That's cute. And just sort of planning. great Zoom convos. Did you have Zoom convos? Yeah, we did. And just sort of planning. We had so much that we had our backstory of like Aiden and Trist. There was so much that we built

that we, you know, obviously we weren't going to get to that because that wasn't the full part of that wasn't the point of the story, but we had so much fun building their story and even so much more of his backstory that of aiden's backstory that didn't come out that was incredible and i think we just had i had such a good time and also He is probably the most knowledgeable person I have ever met about this game. You're telling me.

Nick Marini's been making my life a living hell for 14 years. This man understands game design and building busted characters in a way. Jeez Louise. Was it a triple? It was a triple? It was four.

It was a quadruple. Quadruple multiclass. To the point where in the player's handbook, he can tell you the page to go to to find what you're looking for. I think it's fucked up. I'm building the lily a bit, perhaps. He is so fucking talented.

It's so, it's very, yeah. Nick is, so talking about like actual play and performance, Nick was, I've been playing D&D with Nick since we were kids, since we were like forever and ever and ever. And he's an incredible actor and he's on Cobra Kai and he's done all this amazing stuff. But I always remember in terms of his performances, he I think is the first person to make me cry in a game of D&D.

He played a scene where, in our home game, they went to the underworld, and there had been a battle, in terms of the marriage of mechanics and story, because Nick is the ultimate mechanical master and the ultimate storyteller, that there was a moment where he needed a nat 20 to save a friend and rolled a 19.

And there was a death. It was a full PC death. And they went to the underworld and found the spirit, and we had the player playing their old PC again, and Nick had this moment on this bridge over the chasm of death where he just was weeping and just going like, I'm so sorry I couldn't save you.

And you could feel the weight of that 19. You could feel the weight of being one away from what I needed to save you. Oh, that's even worse. Yeah. Yeah. Nick is, yeah, he's the best. Yeah, fantastic.

I can't wait to play with him again. Yeah. Yeah. I can't wait to play with him again. He's so good. Here we go. For Brennan, that's me. What was your preparation process like for Downfall? He's so good. Here we go. For Brennan, that's me. What was your preparation process like for Downfall? How did it differ from Calamity?

Hmm. Oh. Well. Good question. Give it all up right now. Give it all up right now. There are so many mirrors. It's so funny you said Marisha was like, you got to play the matron,

because Marisha in Calamity played the character that you had pitched. Yeah. And there's a mirror there. And because Marisha in Calamity played the character that you had pitched. And there's a mirror there. And I've often said Calamity was a story about villains. The Ring of Brass were corrupt city officials. They were bad, they were stealing ether from Dominus, bad. And we watch them on the day where their world is destroyed and they all make the decision to give Exandria a chance.

They all make this heroic decision. And then we have Downfall, which is another, it's another, you know, I'm the guy you call when you need a Sky City to crash, but this is from a different perspective. We're not seeing the god come out, we're watching the gods go in. We're seeing it from their perspective.

And I think too, that you're watching these gods of light and law and nature. And it's the opposite of the story of, we talked about this in the character creation of Calamity is here's these villains that have this heroic moment. And then here are the gods that have loved mortals from day one destroying.

And the true, it's Atlantis, it's the mythological story of destruction. And for Matt's purposes, and what he needed this to do in campaign three, it is a moment of horror. And you're like, you keep calling us your children, and you're taking our ability to stand up for ourselves and destroying it and destroying-

You're making us grow. Yeah, and destroying us in the process. And for me too, that one moment that Cassida has where she looks at, where it's like, Abu goes, you can never comprehend, you can't understand. She's like, you're working with the betrayers, you can't understand. And then in the next scene, the emissary is like,

do you understand? And even as she knows she's dead, is like, you have told me I cannot comprehend and now you ask me to understand. With respect, make up your mind. Yes. Yes. I remember that. Yes, I do too.

I was like, ooh! It hurts! Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! But preparing for that horror was the difference. Preparing for you guys to end, not on a beat of triumph, but on a beat of horror was a very different story. Having that moment with Cassida, and again, having that thing of like,

and you see the contradiction that the prime deities are wrestling with in Exandria, where it's like, we're beyond your understanding. Then why are you calling yourself father and mother? Like, if you're so far beyond my fucking understanding, why are you invoking the most primal, understandable relationships that we have if you're unknowable?

And even that final fight, that was a big different preparation because I was preparing a fight that I knew you guys were going to win. And in Calamity, I was preparing a fight that I knew they were going to lose. But within that, I specifically designed that last encounter

to become a horror encounter where you guys are the monsters. And we felt it. Oh boy. Oh my god, I felt it. Like that first round, I know that in that first round, everyone's like, no, they're gonna, and as you start winning, it feels jubilant, but not in a good way. It feels like, uh-oh're gonna! And as you start winning, it feels jubilant,

but not in a good way. It feels like. Uh-oh. That was so cool, though. Yeah. They can just snap their fingers at this point. Yeah, it's like, oh, did we ever, did Aeor ever stand a chance? No.

Yeah. And that, designing that encounter to be that thing that as those powers start to come out, people watching that are fans of powers start to come out, people watching that are fans of the game system are like, wait, this is fucking broken, this is busted. And you're like, yes. You shouldn't get a ninth level spell

every single fucking turn. What do you mean times 10 damage? And you're like, yeah, that's what this is. Yeah, 2,000 hit points. I loved the idea that all of us were so scared of losing that by the time it started to turn in our favor, we became giddy with these new powers, and we all collectively were like,

this is amazing, until all collectively went, this is so fucked that we can do this. Yeah, and it's the feeling too of you, whatever, the fact that when they were all mortals, they were having a conversation about we must do whatever we can to, and then suddenly just and it starts to be like,

so you thought you could stand against, and you go like, yeah, a lot of dragons were breathing fire and ice on you, and a lot of mages were hating you and trashed like, yeah, a lot of dragons were breathing fire and ice on you, and a lot of mages were hitting you with wish spells, and now you do times 10 damage and you have 2,000 hit points. And you go, hey, remember when you

were fucking with me a second ago? And that feeling is, and the intoxication of power. I wanted to use game design to make the feeling of the intoxication of power to explain some of the gods' behavior. Yeah. Yes. And it was funny, there was like one moment where I had to do some menial kill at that point,

and I wanted to use the ninth level spell that you had given, and I was like, what ninth level spell can I do that's gonna be the most just fucking horrific thing? And then afterwards going, all I had to do was do a guiding bolt kind of shit. Yeah, magic missile would have done it. You just knock him out,

because it's like times 10, it doesn't matter. You're a gnat at that point. It's so. That was the big preparation, was that. Designing all of those reversals of, yeah, Calamity being hope in loss, Designing all of those reversals of, yeah, Calamity being hope in loss and this being horror and triumph. I want to see the day after they land on Exandria.

That's a game I want to see. Oh, like the early founding? Yeah, yeah. I want to see the turn against the, yeah, that's another one to put in your head. Super schism, yeah. I'm going to read this one, just because I like the question, even though we kind of answered it. How was it playing the Matron, especially after everything you went through as

Vex'ahlia? It was eye-opening, and I don't hate her anymore. We take that calling you a bitch yeah exactly Sammy but it's funny as Vex like thinking I was gonna just be able to talk her into things like I really thought I could just haggle my way out of this situation

what was Amira's relationship with Purban he was her protector but how did they find each other this comes back to the warlock relationship the matron as he was her protector, but how did they find each other? This comes back to the warlock relationship. The matron, as he was her champion, let him know ahead of time, guess what, I'm going to be inhabiting this baby. I need you to make sure this baby lives until she's needed. So take care of her.

So Purvan was with Amira her entire life. He was like another father figure to her. He helped teach her how to fight. You felt that. I break Danny just a little bit. I just see another little bit of Danny snap off. Because when Purvan said, he was like, it has been my honor. The idea of your deity learning how to walk. And you taking your deity on a little hike

through the woods and teaching her how to fish. And then putting her on a city. And then putting her on a city and knowing it's goodbye. And knowing that the relationship will never be the same. You know, there's no more hugs, right? That's gone. And that there's like a, also the idea of showing up to whoever Amira's mortal parents were

and being like, hello. I'm here with a contract written by a goddess and I'm here with a number of artifacts and a number of like, And a giant wolf. And a giant fucking wolf. Here's a large sum of money. Here's a large sum of money. Here's a large sum of money.

We need you to live well until then. There was some myrrh, but I don't know where I, yeah, no. Might have misplaced it. Yeah, real Obi-Wan Kenobi shit. Yeah, actually, very much so. Hey, let's do another speed round. All right, one more speed round. Come on.

Zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom. Maybe her parents just got really into birds. They ran a raven sanctuary. So you're gonna have a lot of birds around. I was like, is bringing the matron in on her shoulder that early giving away too much? Nah, fuck it. She's done.

Oh, I don't know how I would answer this. This one's too hard, which was, how would the Wildmother have described the emissary of the Lawbearer? I don't know. Aw. That's a... It was her last words, I will tell you everything about that sweet, brave boy. I know. Honestly, in my mind, I've walked away from this character so fucking hard, because it was a lot.

She was a lot up there. I was not functioning well. Is there any of you you don't know. I mean, the easy ones immediately would have been... I'm trying to think of a better word for I would say just and kind to a point more than we deserved. That's as far as I will go with that one. Oh, phew. Well, yeah, she was starting to get her normal personality back by the end of the game. Once the wolf had peaced out, it was more the, oh boy, I didn't want to do that. That was really not pleasant.

The second that the nooshir had the emissary pop his head out of the crate and go dark, and I was like, oh, that's my child. Yes. That's my baby boy. Little baby bean, protect. All right, what was the easiest part about playing Tryst in the Everlight?

What was the hardest? I think... It was the easiest part about playing Tryst in the Everlight? What was the hardest? I think... It was the best of times. It was the worst of times, worst of sure. I think easiest probably, I think it's, I think it was really easy to show love and care for everybody at the table. Because I do love and care for everybody at the table.

And was just so in love with all of the choices everybody was making and the things that they were... That part was easy to sort of jump into that part of the Everlight. And I think the hardest was having to make any decision. Because they all were terrible. They all, and I have a brutal one here. I'll do, these are my last two. Did Cassida truly renounce the Everlight in her final moments, or was that?

Oh, I don't know if I want to know. Probably. Was it true? Probably. Should I say? in her final moments, or was that another lie? Oh, I don't know if I want to know. Probably. Was it true? Probably. Should I say? Do you know? I know.

You do? I know the truth. Of whether it was a lie. You can cover your ears if you want. No, I can't. I should know. I want to know. Yeah, I want to know, too.

She did, right? Did Cassida truly renounce the Everlight in her final moments, or was that another lie? Cassida did not truly renounce the Everlight in her final moments. Of course. She did it before then. Oh! Whoa!

Yeah. Oh. I know. I knew. We know. We Oh. I know. I know. We know. We know. We know. It was the, because that's the whole thing, right? Is it's all about perspective. There was so much of this, which, and this is the second question, too,

which was just the, what were some of the major questions you either wanted to answer or have the audience players ask themselves during this game? I have strong beliefs in the real world, but it's very important to me, I think, that we don't make, when you make or tell stories

that are trying to shortcut to proving yourself right, that's sort of a definition of propaganda, I think. And there's, so showing this, there was a lot of complexity. think and there's so showing this there was a lot of complexity prime deities are outlying with the betrayers that seems pretty fucked aor seems pretty fucked too that's a totalitarian state that is killing it's kicking gnomish women off of ships and it's killing the followers of the gods but also that city is filled with some people who follow the gods but it's also filled with people who don't, who are good and don't deserve to die. But those people are in a city that probably, if it kills

the gods, wants to conquer Exandria. So you're doing the math of the gods mostly want to just be alive, but Eor's bad, so you should stop Eor. But how bad is Eor? It's the last hope of mortaldom, but it's a pretty totalitarian hope of mortaldom, but you did, ba-dip, ba-dip. And it's the horror of making moral choices with too much power in a moving world with everything horrifying around you. And I think for Cassida in that moment, right? She didn't know that she'd been discovered by Aeorian intelligence.

She really thought she was going to help. She really thought that if I can make this weapon, like the gods need us. And there's a childish wonder in that, like what if I get big enough that I can help mom and dad? And then- They're gonna love me so much. They're gonna love me so much when I come. And then, but then you realize that same thing,

which I think that is a lot of people's awakening when you look out at the world and you go like, you know, it's with, which is sort of a Castriel who's, I played, you know, for only one episode really, you see this angel, but who I loved as an NPC to play as this angel who's basically going like, you made me to fight a war that to you is a joke. And that's a very real, so to me,

I think those were the questions I wanted to ask, which is basically, if you look at the gods, I think you can, and this is the question that, I'm gonna go home and you guys have to answer these fucking questions in the rest of campaign three, but there's something about the idea of the main question of like, okay, these gods are family.

They love each other. What does that mean to a mortal? What does that mean to a celestial? What does that mean to, and again, it's like the funny thing is I almost feel like there's two different, like lewdness is lewdness, but lewdness is not,

like that's a different, that's a guy, that's one guy, right? And the other question for me, at least that I wanted to look at was just the idea of, is the love of the gods for each other the most important fact of Exandria? And if I'm a mortal,

do I have to care about it? That to me was... Thank you for giving me the Crawling King, man. The minute that happened, I'm like, oh no. Oh no, I suddenly see all the problems here. This is real bad. Yeah. Oh boy.

So that, and I think all of you, people, I had the best seat in the house. I got to watch all of you do something truly proficient, playing multiple characters. Everyone put 200 pounds of lore on their back and tap danced through playing a mortal avatar, the god behind the avatar, doing a complicated heist movie playing 20th level characters for the first time with a whole suite of powers and taking people through an atlantis story the destruction the the the the god's punishing hubris and leaving you in this position of did they do it because they were scared to die did they do it because they were saving Exandria? Or did they do it because everything was happening all at once and they had one night?

And... Yeah. Yes. The answer is yes. Yeah. And the thing that will never leave me is that, honestly, there is a world where they could just all leave. And that's, I mean, the final conversation, right, is the... Why didn't you just walk away? None of this could have happened if you...

All of this is because... Could they? I mean, could they, though? They were refugees. They were little balls of light that got kind of trapped on Exandria when they came into being. That was my take on it, that when they became, that Exandria trapped that being.

The feeling I get at this point is that may have been true once, but they are now strong enough that if they wanted to go start over somewhere else, because they talk about, some of them talk about, like, we can just leave and start over. And I don't think, especially the Betrayers put that forward, and I think there's definitely a risk that they will lose some of themselves.

I definitely know that's a big fear with the Wildmother, but honestly, I think if they really valued human life, or the life on Exandria, that is a thing they would have been willing to do at this point. And that is the one place where I'm still, you never, anytime you have option A and option B, like anytime someone presents a yes or no option,

my immediate thought is always, are you putting these two options forward because you don't want me to think about a third? Because that is the narcissist play. You can either do A or you can do B and that's it. Like, well, or I could just not play this fucking game. And it is really always that pay no attention to the complexity of the universe.

And yeah, I don't know. It's in my head. I like this question because I feel like this comes directly from Dani, because you want to know. How much did Matt tell you about the Matron of Ravens? Are you now a keeper of the forbidden lore? Matt and I had a very long meeting about all things Matron. He didn't tell me everything, but I know a lot. You know a lot more than you did. I know a lot more than I did.

I know about her ascension. I know about her mortal life. You know how she did it? Maybe. Shit. I'm so happy for you. Me too, me too. I'm not even jealous, I'm just excited for you.

I'm like, oh my god, I love that you know it. Do we do more of these? We do the tower. We do the tower? But I feel like there's, hold on. There's some questions on here that we didn't really get to. Okay. That I just really wanna talk about really quickly.

For one, how much I loved the Betrayer Gods. What? How did you like them? They were so cool. They were so cool. Why did we like them so much? Family. They're so cool.

This, because you guys, the reason you love them and the reason people love villains is being good is more complicated than being evil. And when you are in moral panic and torture and you watch someone totally unburdened by caring about the well-being of others, you go, look, that motherfucker doesn't give a shit about doing the right thing at all! They're living their best life.

They made that decision. Yeah, exactly. Father Milo, my God. So awesome. There were so many moments that reminded me of, what's it, Face Off? You know what I'm saying? Sorry. I'm sorry.

I love action movies. This is based on, the downfall is inspired by Face Off. Obviously. But like when Nick Cage in the beginning. Just the VHS cover. Nick Cage in the beginning when he's like in the choir costume. And then he like grabs the girl's ass. Yeah.

I don't know. It just gave me Father My Love. It is. I mean, it is. That is part of the fun of being a villain is that you've already made your decisions. Yeah. Yeah. And the perspective is totally clean.

It's literally why I had caution about choosing to play one in the beginning, is I was like, I think I said, I don't know if you'll get your Meryl Streep moment of deep emotional wrestling with people who have this much clarity. You know, like, there's like, but I appreciate, so people saw him

as being a priest of the Dawnfather as a troll. I want to be clear, the Lord of the Hells, there's a bit of that cheekiness and mischief to the Lord of the Hells. It's also about how the betrayers hurt the world. And to me, the Strife Emperor, the Crawling King, have these, or the Chained Oblivion, you know, even things like that,

have ways of hurting the world that are like, like overwhelming, there's that chaotic evil thing of like destruction, rampage, slaughter. And to me, the Lord of the Hell, I was like, if you have trickery as a domain, which is also, I remember talking to Matt about like how human the gods are. And I was like, I feel like any god

that has trickery as a domain has to be pretty human. Like you care about the mind and feeling states of other beings, right? You're mapping their consciousness to be able to trick them. So to me, the amount of damage you cause as the Lord of the Hells, if your domain is trickery

and you're the father of lies, is like, oh, I know where I can hurt people the most by being the voice of what they depend on the most and being the, like, the idea of like, I'm not gonna be some monster in the woods. I'm gonna walk right into the town square and say, I have everybody's answers. And that's where you really sow chaos and discord.

My favorite devil ever, and I've forced people several times to watch this, is Demon Knight, the Tales from the Crypt film. Which is my favorite, it's my favorite devil ever, because all he does is just have conversations with people that are all about what they want and about love and about the things that have hurt them and how he can fix it. And it is monstrous. And it is a, it is, I always love, and you played this, so I always love a god of lies who just tells a lot of truth. Tells a lot, yeah.

Yeah. I will say one of my favorite moments in the game was between the Spider Queen and the Archheart. Archheart? Archheart. Archheart. Archheart.

Archheart? Archheart? Archheart sounds... Archheart? Archheart? Archheart. Archheart. Yeah. Archheart. Archheart? Archheart? Archheart sounds... Archheart? Yeah. When she was being a little cheeky with him, and then all of a sudden comes around with that left hook of like, well, this is all your fucking fault. Yeah.

Of why we're here right now. Yeah. So you shut the fuck up. Yes. And they specifically have a... The Spider Queen, the sort of the gods of the elves in Exandria and a lot of like, you know, the idea of magic

and their control over magic. And again, too, the idea of like beauty and art, but then also like, to me, the Spider Queen of like also taking a lot from Aabria and her performance of the Spider. Oh, so good. I really like, I talked to Aabria and I was like, how do you play the, how do you do the Spider Queen of also taking a lot from Aabria and her performance of the spider. Oh, so good. I really talked to Aabria and I was like, how do you play the, how do you do the Spider Queen?

And her as Amletta being this little unassuming thing that drops down from a rope as a rogue from the ceiling. But yeah, I think that hatred of the Archheart in that moment, too. Oof. Of, yeah. I think we all had a little bit of that, of like, this is really uncertain.

This is kinda your fault. Kinda your bad. Why are we cleaning this up, too? And why have you been having such a good time? He's having so much fun with the fact. Wait, can I ask one more? Yeah. From here.

And I'll also say, Crawling King, holy fuck. That scene is harsh. That ruined me. The maple, the syrup, and the blood in the end. It was so funny, because even in that moment where I'm like, wow, Aeor has crashed. It's this ultimate destruction and ruin. And then you see this thing where it's like,

that was the moment where I was like, okay, the gods are something else. Like the pain and misery of nature. Oh, I was immediately like, this was, you know, this was desire and despair. This was a brother-sister. This was clearly,

and like, I immediately figured it was like, oh God, they were really close. Yeah, really close. And I was like, this is going to be the last hug they ever have. Yeah. Because this is the end of the truce right now, so it's just like one last fucking moment of intimacy

before this all goes to fuck. Yeah. And I love that weird turtle and the hooks. Oh, the turtle. Yeah. But how are you, like, just to like, just to like brag about you for a minute. Like, you had such different behavior

with each of the Betrayer Gods. We knew who each of them were, just because of the little things you were doing, the crawling, the little snake coming out, the tongue. You're just real good. Yeah, you're good. You're real good! It's really fun to play with, Brennan. Yeah, you are! I love playing with you!

This was so fun! It was really fun to play with you. I loved, and I loved that too, the moments of, and a lot of people knew, but when he said the hooks, he's like, you have hooks in you too, and I know their names. He was specifically talking about your family. He was referencing Ameris and Topher and Hayley.

Where he's like, we all have hooks. Because the whole point of him, if you understand that even the gods of evil are profound revelations about the truth of the world, then they're just the truths that we hate. They're truths that are bad for us and that are, they're bad news. It's news, but it's bad.

And that, for me, the Crawling King was like, well, the promise of nature is pain and suffering. And so, like, oh, you found love, the thing that hurts the most to lose, like, you know, and, and... Dumbass. You dumb, and then the... And then like we didn't mention the other one, but...

Pain is only a moment, on the other hand, over here. Also, and in play and like knowing stuff, I also was, it was very funny, because obviously you have the Ruiner, who's destructive and hard, and it's the, you know, it's like, and it was so funny, because I was like, in a mortal body, the Ruiner, I was, I did not intend the Ruiner to be funny, I promise.

But all of T'Shah, T'Shah being like, I can't believe you have more followers than me. Yeah, well, yeah. So great. And when I, I suddenly had this moment where I remember being an improv teacher and talking about, I was like, there is a destructive impulse in comedy, because saying the, it's called a punchline.

It shatters a tone. And I was like, oh, for the god of destruction to be funny, like how a punchline shatters the tone in a room. I was like, oh, that was a total, that was a surprise. Well, she didn't show up to it. It was just like, I am so hateful. I was like, anytime I was like, oh, that was a total surprise. Oh, she didn't show up to it. It was just like, I am so hateful. I was like, any time something was like, no, she can take it, and then the minute that, you know,

yeah, you hit the law bearer, I was like, oh, no. Fuck. Fuck you. Fuck you, you piece of shit. Oh. There's so many good questions that you all put together that we didn't get to that I want to know. Wait, what do I do next?

Are we doing the tower? What was your other wait? What is the? What is the other stuff? We could do, I want to know. Wait, what do I do next? Are we doing the tower? What was your other wait? What is the... What is the other stuff? We could do... You want to set a timer? We could do a little timey. We could do...

Okay, something else that I... Another question that I wanted to know. Did anything about the ending surprise you or your character? Oh, boy. I... When the arch... I'm going to say arch-harch, because I like the way it sounds better. I like arch-harch better. You said arch, and I confused you.

When he flipped it and he decided, okay, I have to do this after Selina, that was her name? Mm-hmm. And then you took that, and I think you had to be on purpose, and you brought the whole cone of destruction through the whole city, and it was just so to be on purpose, and you brought the whole cone of destruction through the whole city, and it was just so perfect, because that's what we've been traveling down, is this cone of destruction. And I was like, how the fuck did you turn that

into this perfect, and this is where we are? I just loved it. It was just- Yes. Every moment of- Yeah, I forgot about that. Yeah, yes. Every moment towards the end of like,

well, that won't come back to bite us in the ass. There's just a series of like, oh, I forgot about that. Yeah, yes. Every moment towards the end of like, well, that won't come back to bite us in the ass. There's just a serious, like, oh, I know what that is, oh no. You all watching, I just loved the three of you at the table watching Cognouza vanish. Like, ooh! Oh no! Ooh!

Don't do that, oh, don't do that, that's bad. You guys are dumb. You're gonna be eyeballs. That was a cool moment. Yeah, whoa, we made a mistake there. Oh no. Yeah. God.

All right, well. Kerplunkies? Or are we done? I think we're stopping because we talked too much, right? Oh. It's my fault. I'm not the one controlling the prompter. Say again?

Read the prompter. Just read it? Okay, you're like, please stop. That's it for the deep dive. Which means we're almost done with this very special four-sided downfall, but before we go, it's time for one more round of questions from the tower.

Okay, I'm gonna go since I didn't do it. We who are about to die salute you. I'm doing it, Peter. You're doing it, Peter! I got a twisties, I got a twisties. Oh, I see, because the balls come out in their own area. Oh no! Oh my god, we can make it!

Oh, edible Play-Doh is very doable. Get some food dye and some whipped cream? Should we do that? I feel like we should have a Play-Doh for our kids and create the hug piece. Soundtrack just came out on vinyl, by the way. Shit. Okay, okay, okay. Have to fight. Have to grow. Okay, okay, okay, okay.

Two more, and they're all going to come down. And a little more. Jericho, Jericho, Jericho. Only one? She's got three in there. It was number 17. Let us see here. Did she get there? From Taryn, if you could have any power slash ability that your character has, which one would it be?

Are you talking specifically about Downfall? Wait, ask it one more time, because I just saw that there was an earring in here and I got distracted. Sorry. Wait, if you, what? She didn't hear the question. I'm the worst.

If you could have any power slash ability that your character has, which one would it be? Okay, wait, is this, sorry I'm burnt. I think downfall. Downfall. No, I know downfall. I'm saying is it downfall prior to the final fight where we get like our god fucking abilities, or is it like?

I think it's only level 20. Okay. Only? I know the answer to that. What? It would be to heal people. Because I would bring back people that I love that I've lost.

Yeah. My character can only heal themselves and did a very good job of job. That was my power. That's still a great power. Yeah. I just was a battery that constantly refilled for various reasons, although only when there was terrible death around me, maybe not that one. I don't know. Yeah, that's the thing about being a monk, is there weren't really a lot of superpowers. Yeah. You could parkour like crazy, though.

I could parkour. Parkour like a motherfucker. That would be a pretty great power. I would love to parkour like crazy, though. Parkour like a mother of ours. That would be a pretty great power. I would love to parkour. What would you want? I mean, sure, I could speak with dead. I don't really want to do that, though. I would like to be able to turn invisible. Pretty solid.

No, no. That'd be pretty cool. I think I'd be pretty creepy with it, though. I wouldn't want to speak with dead. They're just like normal people, but they haven't done anything in a very long time, so they have nothing interesting to talk about. And they don't have to be honest with you. Yeah, they don't have to be honest with you.

I mean, as the Matron, they have to be honest with you. Well, yeah, that's a little different. That's true. Which, I'm trying to think which character. Gosh, there are so many of them. I feel like the... Of all the NPCs... Oh!

I'd want to be a 4X Tenement and have a bunch of arms. Just a bunch of Boston Shakers in every hand. Get up there and go pick a stick. Pick a stick! All right, here we go. You've only got two. You've got the least amount of marbles. Yeah, and everybody else is tied. Still got that one bottle of alcohol out of the day. Wait, did you turn it?

Yeah. Did any come out? Did any more marbles come out? So it's three, three, three, two for Brennan? Yeah. Now he's at four. What's the pick a number? 19.

19. Seriously, what is the costume production process for a live show? Take us from inception to when it's dawned. Dying to know what the collaboration is like and how things are found. From Jess C. That's a great question.

This is something I'd like to, this is someone I'd like to brag about. Jenny. Jenny fucking Newman. She's amazing. I love her. She sent me a photo today of myself. And Manzi.

Manzi and Jenny. Jenny sent me a photo of me and my car because we were apparently driving down the freeway together and she was just like, Look what I saw. Oh god! Also, makeup artist, Drea. Drea. Yeah, Drea.

Oh my god. It's such a great team. I feel like Jenny has such a cool eye for the weird and the strange, but also really gets each of our own personal style. She knows our personal style, and then she understands the characters.

And she really wants to understand the characters, too. So she'll ask a lot of questions about what kind of a vibe are you going for? She would ask for the live show, do you want this to specifically be for your latest character look? Or should this be a general vibe for how your character is throughout the entire campaign? And so we have a lot of input there. We come up with a general vibe for the show. Do we want to do, like... Yeah, are we all going goth? Are we all...

Are we doing Halloween costumes? Or for the UK show, it was all rock stars? Yeah, we wanted a rock star vibe. Yeah. And we all picked specific genre hits, and then we hand it to her and say, fix it. Do interpret this. It's this beautiful, sweet chaos, because she's so so creative and she has such an eye and such a mind for creating these costumes. And there's always this chaos on the day of

because she's like, we always sew custom pieces, so they put those two pairs of pants together for you. And then I have like- She'll be like, I have an idea. I have an idea. She's sewing something on you as you're going on stage. You're getting sewn together.

You never know exactly what it's gonna look like until you're putting it all on. It's the best. Love her. I love it. I love it. And the makeup team. And the makeup team.

And Dre. Yeah, just stick some glitter on your head. It'll be great. I don't know. Okay, yeah, that's great. I love that I got to reuse my purple wig that I bought for Jester for another life shake. And I loved your makeup.

Your makeup was great. It was great. Yeah, your eyes popped. I walked out and on my way to the stage, I think I saw Dani at the last minute, and I leaned in and I went, I'm cosplaying as a camera. And... My response was, everyone's gonna get that.

Yeah, everyone's gonna get it. Dre truly did, I came down and Dre was like, okay, we're going to do a look for you. What are you playing? And I was like, I'm sort of playing a magic recording. She's like, okay. And it was like being the kid at the birthday party who's like, I want to be a beetle.

Yeah. I'm like, oh, I do. I'll figure out how to do that. I can do cats and puppies. I want to see Christmas! Yeah. You're like, ugh. I just figure we all have to do it again

in order to make this consequence even. All right, all right, that's fine. Do it, do it. It's lined up, am I good? Oh wait. Yeah, no, no, no. It's been in turn, it's been in turn. Can I knock another one down for Brennan?

Knock another one down. Shit. Just shit. Sorry, Queen. Nice. Oh, Queen. Nice. Oh, fuck. Oh no, Renan, there's no way you're gonna lose this because I don't see how there's another way.

I feel like, I mean. There's, they're all gonna fall. Why did I come up here? I don't think I need to go again. Her plunk is rigged. Her plunk is rigged. I think you got it. I think there's only one, like, oh fuck.

You have to keep pulling. Blame Kyle. Pain is a moment. This is bad, this is bad. Pain is just a moment. Oh no. There you go. Okay, okay, okay. There you go. That's not bad. That could've been worse.

Yeah, it could've been worse. I'll be fucked. That can't be right. 31. 30, Wayne. Okay. I'll be do-do-do. I'm fucked.

Nice and Jer, your character won a blue ribbon at the local fair, what for? What for? Yeah, what was their ribbon for? I mean, I mean, produce, yeah mean, produce. Best guavas or something. Best guavas! I don't know. It's a very wonderful giant guava. An increase in the guava quota.

Or gourd. Everyone loves a gourd. I can't think of a single thing, made sure I win an award for. Her rhubarb pie, though, you guys. Don't even fuck around with a rhubarb pie right now. Wait, oh boy, I don't know. Have you ever seen the table setting competitions that we do at the State Fair in LA? Oh, so great.

Oh, man. Dani knows. Oh, yes. I not only know, but I actually played a character in eighth grade in the musical Dear Dweena, who was the fairy fork mother and was assisting, was magically

assisting a girl with her table setting competition. We gotta go back to the State Fair. It's been way too fucking long. Yep. Goddamn. I miss the State Fair so much. Goddamn, you are the best State Fair partner. There's so many wrinkles. It's happening. Fucking happening.

All of Taliesin and I's pictures are from the State Fair. Yeah, we go and we do a savage burn at the State Fair. I know, wait, I know we would have the same one. Because you would win for Gilly Best in Show. Yes, for sure. There you go. That's a good one. Gilly.

Best in Show. Get up there and pull. Boom, boy. Oh, wait, you were the last one, so you got to go next. I thought, did you? No, no, no, you're in red. OK. Nice.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, likely fucking story. Likely fucking story, bro. I appreciate your, you tried. You can do it, Tal. Oh, wait, wait, I gotta turn, I gotta turn. Just fucking knock another one down! Daddy! I'm trying!

Shit. This is Transylvania! I bet. There. Frankenstein! Look, I live to serve Laura Bailey and Laura Bailey alone. I don't know why I feel like I'm going to be dealing with the consequences. If I only had to pull one, I have options. I know it's going to be Brennan. Here's the thing. I felt really confident when Laura was going. Now I feel way less good that I felt really confident when Laura was going. Now I feel way less good than I felt.

I'm looking at Taliesin pulling and I'm like, ooh, this could be really bad for me. Nicely done. Nicely done. Fair enough. Uh-oh, I think I'm in the... It's gonna be me. Number one with a bullet.

Number one. Good job, Tal. That was impressive. This will be an interesting one specifically for Downfall. Downshot? Wow. Cole Pratt underscore on Instagram.

Dungeons and Dragons is a game full of tough decisions that have crafted a beautiful story across three campaigns. If you could have a what if one shot or mini series and change a decision your character made in the past, what would it be? Oh man, we've talked about that. Change it. It doesn't have to be downfall, but I do think it's interesting that this question is coming up during downfall. Change one decision? Change a decision your character made in the past.

It's just a what if, so it's like a little mini, it's a little mini alternate universe. I feel like I can answer this. I will say I probably would take back when Pike took a shit on a bed. Because I thought it was fun in the moment, because Scanlan did it, and I was like, I'll take a shit on a bed too, have fun!

I'd probably take that back, because that took me down a real dark path for a while. It did. Not me personally, but Pike. Yeah, it was like, oh, this is fun. Yeah, because Matt was like, there are consequences for your actions, and now your alignment's off, and I'm like,

for taking a shit on a bed? The bed will remember this. Using your mace to slit a guy's throat. Yeah, I think that was the thing that did it. That probably, I think it was. Would that have happened? If I didn't take a shit on the bed. I mean, you would feel a little loosey-goosey

that episode is what happened. Maybe I was, I was just having a good time. I don't know if we were going this low stakes or not. I was gonna go way higher stakes. We'll go higher stakes. Mine's really dull, though. That was just having a good time. I don't know if we were going this low stakes or not. I was going to go way higher stakes. Go higher stakes. That was just my first thought. Mine is, I'm very curious about the nature of the game if Molly had gotten through that fight. Oh! That's a big, like that's not a little, that's affecting the timeline.

Yeah, but that's awesome. That would have affected so much. Everything. Oh, wow. Oh, wow, Jester would have had to keep healing. Maybe it's good that Molly died. Oh, man. That delivery was so fucking mean. Holy shit.

Oh god. I'd probably go, there's so many things. What would happen if Imogen had given in to Predathos in those moments when she was falling deeper and deeper. Night is fucking young. Could still happen. That's interesting, because I had one that I thought about for you a lot, which was Fenthris. What if you had just said yes? Oh, well, yeah. I lost sleep over that one, for sure. I was like, I made the wrong choice.

I made the wrong choice. I made the right choice. But at the time, I was sure I made the wrong choice. I don't know why we're looking at you for this one, but. I'd be lying if I didn't say that in private moments, to himself, the Lord of the Hells

did not think to himself, just stay with Avalir until it fully connects to the ground and the Primordials are released. I know that you're worried

that the Ruiner is going to get to Vasselheim before you and kick a bunch of ass without you before you get there. Don't delegate this task. Follow through. Stay with the city. Make sure the prophecy happens. I think he probably is.

He's just like, come on, man! This is striking me as a good delegator, to be honest. Yeah, I think he got slap-happy. I think he was like, We're doing it, baby! We got out in the world! So you're saying he really took a poop on Avalir's bed? I think so. I think somewhere Pike is going, I shouldn't have shit on that bed. And somewhere Lord of the Hells is going, I shouldn't have shit the bed, let me tell you.

Ah, that was a mistake. You got this, Ashley. There it is. I got this. Actually, you don't got this, because if you don't got it, that means... Well, I feel like... Who's got the most marbles? I don't know, this one I'm gonna have to have a...

Are we going until all of the marbles are down? Or are we calling it now? Calling it now. Let's call it now, you don't know. This one I'm going to have to have a... Are we going until all of the marbles are down? Or are we calling it now? Let's call it now. You don't have to pull. Wait, did you already twist it after Ashley? Oh yeah, did you twist it? No, Ashley's got to go again. That's right, you've got a second one. You have one more. I went first. This is the last pull. Everyone will have gone an even number of times. That's right.

Danny! Danny! Danny! Danny Carr. Danny L. Carr. Danny Elizabeth Carr. Sabotage! We're all just gonna fall out. Mon dieu!

I mean, what am I trying to even? Sacre bleu. Sacre bleu. Saboteur. Did she lose yet? If you get one out, do you lose? No, Ashley, you're gonna nail it. I think I've...

I think I've lost already. You're gonna pull one and those marbles are gonna shoot back up. No, I don't want advice. It would be bad advice anyway. That's a dumb... Don't pull that one. They're coming out. They're all coming out. They're all not coming out. One's coming out. Two's coming out. Three's coming out. They're all coming out. They're all not coming out. One's coming out.

Two's coming out. Three's coming out. They're all coming out. Not all of them. There you go. All right, so Ashley lost. What's the consequence? I don't want.

Consequence, Latin, with sequence. Okay. Read this aloud. Okay, sorry. Whoever made the tower go kerplunk the most in episode 26 of Foresighted Dive must create an in-canon backstory for Bolo that includes if how she escaped Avalir,

if she was present for downfall, if she ever got the drinks. Well, we kind of know some of that now. Weirdly, we kind of did. We kind of do. We don't know how she escaped Avalir. And we don't know if she got the drinks. She did get the drinks, for sure. She got them.

For sure, that was like mission numero uno. I think she escaped. She escaped by, I don't know, that's a source of pressure to have this be canon. She is a dragon. You know, you know. Thank you. She flew.

Yay, Ashley! Yeah! Woo! The real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, Wait a minute, I'm a fucking dragon. I'm a fucking, you're not done! Wait, and if she,

Oh, she's just going real bad. Wait, but if she, and if, yeah, if she was present for downfall, Which she was. If she was, if she got the drink, yeah. So she flew away, she was present for downfall, and she definitely got the drink. Yeah, and I, We all got our drink. And listen, I think that she was, I think was present for downfall, and she definitely got the drink. Yeah.

We all got our drink. And listen, I think that she had a loyalty, even though as a dragon, she had a draconic loyalty to the city of Aeor. She did. And I think that she was genuinely infiltrating the city of Avalir through a honeypot with Loquatius Seely.

She really wanted to be a reporter. She really wanted to be a reporter. She really wanted to be a reporter. She really did. And the question remains, if, it's not established if Loquatius Seely, if Sam's character in Calamity actually ever, because he had been seeing Bolo for a little while. So if they actually did smash,

then he was the bard who had sex with a dragon. They smashed. They smashed! For sure, you think so. Clearly. What if she's pregnant before she flew away? Then a half-fairy, or, but there's a hundred years. Then she shouldn't have gotten the dragon.

She could have hatched an egg that is half-fairy, half-dragon, all awesome, somewhere in the Calamity. And that dragon is me. That's in canon now. And that half-fairy,'s in canon now. And that half fairy, half dragon is Danny Carr. My mother was a dragon, my father was a reporter. Cool. Cool, as they say cool. Well hey, thank you, Taryn, Jesse,

Nysinger, and Cole Pratt. And if you have a question for our Tower of Inquiry, you can enter it at critrole.com slash tower. That's it for this very special four-sided downfall. Don't bother looking for a more-sided die for this episode because you won't find it. I want to thank our guests, Brennan Lee Mulligan, Laura Bailey, Taliesin Jaffe, and of course, our lovely lore keeper, Danny Carr.

I am Ashley Johnson, your 26th tavern keeper, and I guess this is the outro. Friends around the table, time to celebrate. It's a party hit the lights here we go Waste the night away with a little escape. It's a chance to lose control So let's just leave this world behind Everybody come on, take a dive One by one we roll the dice, come on Let's go, critical road

For another round, your friends are here to cheer you on Critical road Throw it back, it's good times all night long Let's go, the critical roll No way to lose when you're having this much fun It's your turn No way to lose when you're having this much fun Can I give you an ear-wrap kiss?

I couldn't have been happier I know If it makes you feel better My mother was a dragon, my father was a reporter.