Critical Role General

Here we discuss all things Critical Role and events unfurling as the stream continues. For those who dislike the show, think of this as a containment thread to keep /5e/ clear of Keyleth posting and Mercer homebrew rule questions.

For those who like the show, reminder that Darrin DePaul is on again as a guest where Vox Machina is in Ioun's plane of existence to build the divine tremel, aka the Vecna problem-solver. What do you hope the party will do? Will they continue on a God Parade and get as many boons as they can, or will they try to defeat Vecna before he's a literal god?

Keyleth hating is expected, but let's tone it down and hope she doesn't do anything stupid tonight

>tone down keyleth hating
who is this imposter

when is the stream starting? Converting to australian time is confusing.

5-10 minutes depending on how many times they fuck up stream settings

>tone down keyleth hating

that is entirely on her

also, good job with the OP thread discussion, I normally make these threads using that image but I was late tonight. Seems like the image is just a good visual indicator.

Just started. Darin De'Paul is there, hell yeah.

>no more lav mics
god bless

oh god, that campaign book

>in my world, no feels bad ever! everyone's friends! and GAY!

Laura is adorable.

My hope is that they get the boon from Ioun, then go to Kord and get his input/boon, which will probably boil down to them testing their might against him proper before Grog gets the boon.

After that, I really think they should just go and take on/out Vecna. They could possibly get help from more of the gods (Melora, the goddess of nature and the person who helped make Keyleth's Vestige staff, the Trickster god that Sam/Scanlan inquired about) but if you get (basically) the top four head dieties + Sarenrae's boons, that should be enough to make the Vecna fight mostly even, assuming he's not a true god yet.

I also don't think Keyleth deserves a deity's boon because her entire life has been all, "fuck the gods, they don't deserve our worship." At least Percy, the other main god-hater of the group, disliked them more out of lack of knowledge and a bit of fear than Keyleth's supposed reverence towards nature.

they need to kill vecna before that live show
those are the fucking worst and i dont need a big moment to be interrupted by the crowd

>campaign book
Huh?

My hope is that the live show is actually the epilogue/battle royale "after campaign" episode that the group and Matt want to do.

matt's making a campaign book based on the CR world, and the opening statement is cringey as fuck

>telling a 'knock-knock' joke to the Goddes of Knowledge
Fucking hell, Darin is love.

Ioun is gonna choose her champion? SCANLAN or PERCY????

Scanlan confirmed. Percy BTFO.

he looks PISSED

no problem :)

poor Darin looks like it's hard for him to stay in character with the occasional joke

Ioun would prefer Scanlan, but I think she'd be fine with Percy if the gnome turned it down.

I think Percy's fear/worry over his invention is why he wants to keep his secrets and/or discoveries of science he makes, for he knows both the best and worst case scenario of his inventions.

Good. That's what he gets for hating gods the entire game.

It was an awesome DM choice, the previous episode Percy was all about Ioun's books n shit and he got his hubris destroyed just now.

Scanlan also has had the Ioun stone in his possession the entire time and I could tell this was meant for him.

I think its because that was his only chance to get a god boon, no other gods care for him.

I think Taliesin is more pissed that he didn't get a chance to voice his concerns/worries to the god as Percy before she went and subject Scanlan to the challenge.

Taliesin looks suuuper pissed tho

I actually don't expect that, Mercer didn't fall for his BS last game

Fitting. Someone who has spurned gods often and loudly doesn't deserve a divine boon. Same goes for Keyleth.

The two of the group who spurned the gods the most are Percy and Keyleth, but of the group, Scanlan and Percy are the two that Ioun would want to become her champion. Scanlan due to the "history" of how Bards make a living (telling stories and weaving a tapestry through history), Percy for his lust for knowledge.

I'd love if the guy whose life's book they are looking for is Otiluke, and 'Incantation of Isolation' is just the Resilient Sphere spell

I wonder if this test is also for Percy. Scanlan "fails" the test but Percy catches something or ends up finding the book first.

that would cool, but i think it's some sort of banishment spell meant to defeat vecna

My guess is the test is actually for both; Scanlan to use his Bardic Knowledge to figure stuff out, Percy to start opening up with things he's keeping hidden from the group.

do you guys think Sam is actually a genius in real life? like if he focused on math instead of drama he could have solved planetary colonization

how can one man come up with so many songs on the spot?

I'm thinking either Ioun is the book and they can search for her or it's wherever she would hide herself in her recovery, so I guess her main quarters?

Yes

What's his name, yo?

as soon as marisha opened her mouth chat just ripped into her. As expected.

>Critical role shills have infested the board
How do you go from having a thread once in a blue moon to having one almost all day every day?
Shills, that's how.

Which chat? I only see the subs chat that only says good things about everything.

it's once a week for the episode you dumb nigger
also it's barely active so fuck off

i cant remember when sam looked this invested and was having this much fun

I've noticed a CR on the front page almost every day for a while now, you fuck off.

Why the fuck would they need to shill on Veeky Forums of all places?

>Marisha being quiet
>Sam taking up the entire episode
>Scanlan singing his heart out

the hell? how does the bard only know three languages?

that's because the campaign book is coming out, again shut up you dumb faggot

...

Well a human wizard with sage background knows 4 languages naturally and knows the comprehend languages and tounges spell.

Not to mention he only learned Marquesian during the time skip when he moved there

this is one of the best puzzle episodes ever, kudos to matt on this one

This feels weird. I like Scanlan but he's essentially a sociopathic manipulator, whose trade is lies, deceit and misinformation. A deity of knowledge should despise him on principle.
Being a non-believer is trivial compared to being the antithesis of your cause.
But whichever way the wind blows, I suppose.

good point, but he has saved the world multiple times, and perhaps he's changed

Yeye

he's also the shit, and his powers lead to a much more interesting challenge

i knew it

Percy also can't cast spells of fourth level or higher which you need to activate the book

>moradin "the allhammer" namedropped

please PLEASE let us meet moradin

That's a shit excuse, Matt made the challenge with Sam/Scanlan in mind. If he had made it for Percy/Taliesin, it wouldn't involving spellcasting.

e.g., the entire thing was railroaded from the start.

So the book itself is how you can seal a god, but it's easy to resist when it's a raw cast. You need multiple divine tremels to stick to the thing you want to seal up to increase the DC. At least two tremels would be good, three or four would be ideal.

And Matt did say that it's easier to stick a tremel on a wounded foe than one at full power.

Still, it gives them a secondary win-con versus Vecna: kill the SOB or seal him up in a similar prison like the Chained God.

A Core Anvil is what you use to make the divine tremels, and it's currently at the bottom of an ocean in a shipwreck.

sure, but it was still a great challenge

if vecna is killed why not just destroy his phylacteries?

GROG CAN FORGE NOW WTF?!?!? HOLY SHIEEET

Do they even know what or where they are?

I don't think they even know what a lich is, much less what a phylactery is.

Also, having Ioun forcefully give knowledge to Percy and Grog on how to make these things is a nice, gentle show of force of how strong a god is.

Also, we're going to have at least one crafting session where Percy and Grog try to make one of these things, which should lead to some nice roleplay.

didnt they already kill a lich? his phylactery was in grog's chest

KAS HYPE

kas confirmed

KAS

SWORD OF KAS

Oh he's changed: he's gone from just not telling the party about his real thoughts and emotions to outright manipulating them.

Being killed transformed him from a scoundrel to something more subtle and much, much darker, someone willing to use every edge and every opportunity to get his way, his "friends" included.

craven edge?

And Matt begins lore dumping Vecna's history based upon his campaign world, and we get some more history given to the players about Kas.

They also know about the Sword of Kas now, and where the Eye and Hand of Vecna came from.

KAS OR SOME SAY KASM.

AAAAAAAAAAAHHHOOOOOO~

VECNA IS A GOD NOW

WELL, VECNA IS OFFICIALLY A GOD NOW

>Matt actually had a timer in the background for Vecna's ascension
Good. Maybe this will be a kick in the party's ass to get shit done.

What exactly happened? My internet cut out for a second

Ioun noticed that Vecna had finished his ritual of ascension

Ioun told them she felt Vecna ascend.

Well, from start of the ritual to the finish it's been maybe two days at most. They spent the first day getting their shit back together, starting to warn foes, and then immediately left for Sarenrae's realm. They visited and got boons from three gods in under a day, along with two minor essences of a god. That's a pretty good day in my opinion, but it's still a pretty narrow time table. Sounds like they have another day or two to get their shit together before Vecna gets a full grasp of his newfound godhood.

awww, is darin out the rest of the session?

Did she just give Scanlan her divine spark?

So...the boy Kas is canon in Matt's setting?

Please tell me Kas is still alive and he wants to kick his old boss's shit in.

>Darin flirts with Laura and it's precious
>Orion does it and ruins his life

Cause Darin isn't a dick about it

...

>marisha busting out the fake tears

Just have to shit on a good ep, don't you?

Ageism

God's have been beaten by weaker heroes in this canon, right? Raven Queen being one of them.

She gave him a small portion of her divine essence, it's the same thing that Pelor gave to Vex to help them make a divine tremel. Or prime tremel, or whatever the hell they are; the chains to help banish a god.

at least her "deep" line wasn't incredibly awful
"Only big men talk big words that only fail on the battlefield"

Ohh, alright.

What do you mean by beaten? As far as I know, the Raven Queen ascended to godhood and... that's it. I don't remember any battles against her

Sorry, I mean the Raven Queen beat the last Death, who was a true god while she used to be mortal.

Maybe this is me, but I think the whole Ioun and Sprigg scene gave me a moment of thinking about The Doctor from Doctor Who, where they ask someone to go on an adventure with them.

Gone at the break. RIP best guest ever.

I think that we don't need to remark on every little thing that ever reminds us of Doctor Who without provocation.

According to Matt's lore, the Raven Queen was originally a mortal who ascended to godhood during the Calamity.

In his book, he describes it more like she literally stole the divinity from the former god of Death, which was one of the prime reasons why the rest of the gods made the Divine Gate, so that other mortals couldn't do that.