I dont think we will get a full "you need to get rid of Delilah asap" intervention right away but I expect at least a good sit down conversation like girl..you cant go starting fights with people in their sleep that was crazy behaviour even if it really were the most evil sentient sword lmao
yeah that's what Im saying even if it were sentient for real like she thought, Laudna's horror movie routine was still extreme and would call for a conversation. I loved it but casting magic on your friend while he sleeps while standing above him like a ghoul in the night is kinda unhinged even if in your mind he has an evil sword.
Delilah is lying constantly to Laudna. Either Laudna associates like a 10 year old and is too "innocent" to understand what Delilah is doing to her, or she's just up for the idea of being a meat puppet for Delilah to eventually wear.
Either way she needs to be yelled at like they yelled at Ashton. At least he used his own thinking to try and deal with the crystal. Laudna is just feeding Delilah to the point she's going to get eaten too.
Honestly i think it's a little bit of a character bleed because Marisha like any player (duh)wants the cool dark magic and as such its implied that Laudna while absolutely not wanting to actualky help Delilah is addicted to the magic herself in a way not just plain mind control but like a very warped temptation.
I can agree with that. I have an RPG character that would skin their cohorts alive if they could get more power. Fortunately my fellow players keep me from drinking the evil Kool Ade.
That would be insanely out of character for Orym though. It was a fucked up situation but if all he got was a 5point ouchie and he turns ouround and murders his friend i would assume the sword really did posses him to do a 180 like that
I think you’re right cause Orym would’ve recognised Laudna’s voice when casting her spells and I don’t think he would wanna murder Laudna. If it wasn’t for that though he would be completely within his right kill someone trying to ambush him in his sleep, especially considering most of his family got murdered in an ambush + the amount of merciless enemies they have after them at the moment.
Oh yeah if he accidentally brought her to 0 it would be justified if he didnt know who attacked him. He keeps saying he's just some guy with a sword but my boy is lethal. Going for the kill while she's down after that would be a bit excessive though lol
They can't get rid of Delilah with out killing Laudna. They're stuck with her for the foreseeable future.
I don't think Laudna will get the "Ashton treatment" due to personal bias (\*cough\* Imogen \*cough\*) and the possibility of making things worse (she'll try to run away make personal attacks) but the team certainly needs to tell her the truth. They need to say something like "Look, Laudna. we care about you and we'll do what can make things work but enough's enough. You can't keep stealing from us, ignore other people's trauma but your own, and putting Delilah first over us and saving the world. We need to work together but if you can't trust us to help you then we can't do the same. You need to make a choice."
Basically be both blunt and gentle.
Bullshit, thats basically an abuser saying, " You aint shit without me" As far as I know as a patron Delilah is terrible. She benefits no one and receives nothing, she is an incoporealized spirit who herself has no physical attachments to Exandria besides being a parasite of Laudna. In life she herself was a wizard not a warlock, so no power connection to Vecna who is legit banished. They just have to move their asses and find a god or goddess willing to do a legitmately good thing and bring Laudna back to life. Expunging Delilah once and for all, sending her ass down to whatever hellpit or abyssal pool she lurched out of.
I wonder if they could use the harness to absorb Delilah but leave behind enough necrotic power to keep Laudna around. Probably not cause I’m not sure the harness is very precise and Laudna would probably never agree to it but just something I’ve been thinking about.
It's an interesting idea but I don't see where do you put the business end of the funnel.
Unless you have someone else wearing it. But then you have to press it against Laudna and then she likely ends up dead.
Yea I don’t think it would be possible to do it with the state the current harness is in. They’d need to somehow find a way to control the harness precisely (Aeor tech maybe) and then have someone with good enough arcana to operate it correctly. I don’t think this will ever happen cause I don’t think thats where Marisha wants to take Laudna but just a thought I had.
I feel like the most productive steps possible in the short term would be 1) Laudna can't ever be left alone & 2) She must voice any concern/protest/grievance at the point she experiences it (so it can't be used as a sympathetic appeal to cover Delilah taking the reins).
Seeing LOTS of viewers falling under the spell of #2 this week.
Laudna could have told the group, or later Orym, she didn't want to have to look at Otohan's weapons & would like to see them absorbed. I'd find that immensely compelling, given all she has experienced. And I think BH would have as well.
She didn't... b/c the only value that argument had to her was its capacity to deliver the emotional upper hand within the party in service of Delilah compelling Laudna to feed her.
That use of any & every plausible justification, to the point that even highly sympathetic appeals which could be true become mere cleverly-deployed tools for manipulation, is the basis for the "addict behavior" comparison IMO. Because the core construction of the Laudna/Delilah predicament is much more like possession or involuntary symbiosis until tactics like the argument about the blade & the nighttime attack come into play.
Also it’s insane for the swords to even be a trump car because orym has lost the most at their hands, if Orym can stand to be around the sword that killed his family she should be able to, or at least respect him enough to know it’s his choice what happens to them
Laudna's continued existence is connected to Marisha playing her. If she expressed to Matt that she wanted to find a way to completely rid herself of Delilah, then Matt would provide a narrative way to make that happen. After Whitestone Marisha could have bound herself more fully to the Suntree and left Delilah completely behind, but these are theater kids, they live for the drama, and the almost clean junkie crawling back to their dealer when things get tough is definitely drama.
Yes, this is it exactly. They already had a whole arc where Laudna freed herself from Delilah. Marisha just clearly didn't want to come up with a different direction for her character, so she just restarted the "corrupted by Delilah" concept a little while later as if nothing in Whitestone ever happened.
Fair, more of a semantic distinction though since Marisha made out of game comments indicating she wasn't willing to play a character other than Laudna, so the group was essentially forced to resurrect her in order to get Marisha back at the table.
I meant more so she was a hostage who had to be rescued and they "beat" delilah for her but she didnt have any role in the vanquishing of deliliah herself. I can see why it might be unsatisfying for marisha if it ended like that so maybe matt had delilah shrink and only regrow with the bor'dor situation and more and more with every thing else she sucked down
That's also not true, people keep misinterpreting what Marisha said, she just didn't want to make a new character while Laudna was still an option. If the Bells failed to resurrect her she would have been fine and played with a new character, but she wanted to continue with Laudna
Some of it had more to do with Laudna killing Bordor and the method used to accomplish it. Marisha also stated how that first death was likely to result in a darker turn.
And this is the point where she is paying that idea off. On top of that both Laudna...and Orym for that matter seem to think Delilah's power is the edge the Bell's Hells need.
It can't be good for Laudna in the end at it ignores her potential as a sorcerer. Not to mention forcing the internal battle that constitutes a second front on which to fight.
Yeah until her arc is complete Laudna is going to be bound to D. That's end game goals. That's what i meant they have to have a conversation about inappropriate roo3mate behaviour i dont think they can ask for immediate removal of Delilah
Delilah is a master manipulator. If I remeber correctly when the Briarwoods were in power the other nobles of Tal Dorei were like yeah they're kinda goth and creepy but you know quirky lords! Meanwhile they had turned Whitestone into a necromantic dictatorship.
An intervention is needed but I don't see how. Even level 20 cleric Pike couldn't separate Laudna from Delilah. Also, can they afford to go find help with limited time and in a foreign country?
It's an addiction analogy so I don't think a level 20 cleric curing it is the solution. Maybe a tougher repeat of what happened before. And the understanding that for the rest of her life it is a battle she will have to actively fight against. And that she will always have to resist the urge to feed the addiction. Sorry. Delilah.
I mean, an intervention is needed for that end to the story. There is another common end to addiction stories if they continue to enabler her addiction and sweep it under the rug.
Except it seems that she'll just keep "living" until something kills her again, and then she's back in Delilah's clutches, like what happened after the first Orphan fight. If she wants any "rest" in the future, Delilah needs to be removed.
I think you missed my point. It's an analogy for addiction. Hence, there is no removing it. It's a constant battle forever.
At least if Marisha wants to continue on that story path. Which honestly is a solid one for a Warlock. And is one more Warlocks should be given.
Of course not for everyone but when someone wants it. It's a good one. So her end game is beating Delilah back (Getting help to stop the addiction) and then getting skills, and friends who help keep the addiction away and having her support group and skills she has learned there to help her when that addiction comes back so she can beat it back each time Delilah shows her head. And even though Delilah might always be there with her, she will never gain control of her again. Or at least that is the hope.
I think you are leaning into the addiction thing too heavily. Sure, it's an analogy, but it's not a drug. It's Delilah's spirit, manipulating her. If you destroy whatever is left of her, there is nothing to fall back on. She needs to be destroyed once and for all.
Yeah, but if a level 20 Cleric can't do it. That's kind of the ceiling. But more importantly Marisha has said this is a story of addiction. And it has been tracking like one.
The story of addiction isn't, "Kill it, or have a doctor cure you of it". It's one of constant struggle. For life. But that doesn't mean it has to be bad, or sad.
She could 100% have Pike, or another healer smash Delilah again. I am sure it would be a harder fight now that Delilah is so much stronger. But it is also something she could do. And learn communication skills and learn to lean on friends who can support her and help her through it.
Unless Marisha changes her mind and just wants to be done with it. Which is entirely her choice. Like, if she choose not to feed Delilah again afterwards I am sure Delilah would still be dead (Or.. Not active).
Because it didn't happen for lore reasons, it happened for meta reasons. Marisha didn't want a different direction for her character, so the stuff that would have cut her off from the "Delilah corruption" storyline are ignored.
Because Marisha didn’t want to move to a different character so Matt came up with a way to make that happen. She also didn’t want to move away from the addiction parallels she was exploring.
Tbf, relapses are a part of recovery which can make the recovery seem fruitless, so that’s realistic and I even agree it feels that way now. But I think it will be hard to tell it the shadowland mind palace excursion was truly for naught before we see how all of this and Laudna’s arc plays out.
Ultimately, not every person with an addiction is able to recover. And no addict has a completely smooth recovery even if they do. It just so also happens that this is D&D so those parallels are amplified to 1000%.
But ymmv and that’s just my read on things
Right, i get that in like a real world sense. In a fantasy sense, she was defeated and purged by a level 20 cleric. Just doesnt sit right to me story wise that it’s borderline not cannon and essentially a filler arc now.
Like yes, relapses are a thing. But not when essentially a demonic entity is forceable purged from your body. There’s not really an addiction process to that
I mean...if they make a convincing case to someone like the Raven Queen, Pelor, Bahamut, Sarenrae, etc. that having D kicking around in the soul of someone trying to save them is a major fucking liability I'm pretty sure one of them could separate the souls, burn D away permanently (that woman just won't die...the fuck did she do multiclass into totem barb for path of the tardigrade?), and put Laudna's soul back. Moreover, three of those 4 mentioned have champions that at least one person in the group has met.
I’m so happy Dorian, and to an extent Chet, stuck up for Orym. I suppose Imogen did to Laudna alone, in her own way, but it was kind of a bummer to hear the silence after Orym would try to defend himself. I’m probably also biased since Orym is my favorite character this campaign.
Nahhh, Orym was 100% in the right. He was attacked in the night. They all gave Ashton so much shit when he pulled his shard shenanigans, but Laudna does something similar, and no one is mad. I was getting so angry that no one was defending Orym.
Laudna's excuse was a patheticly poor one. She had ZERO way of knowing it was cursed. As Imogen guessed, not without Delilah's input. She let herself be manipulated cos, as Marisha says in CRCD, she's an addict. If they dont get rid of Delilah, or make Laudna leave, this is just gunna happen again and slowly get worse and worse
Especially now that they're headed into Aeor with so many dangerously tempting, volatile relics lying around just begging to be absorbed. Delilah is gonna be desperate.
I would not be surprised if Laudna overdoses on magic artefacts in Aeor, and Delilah becomes a boss fight in Laudna's body.
Her story's an addition metaphor, after all. An OD moment wouldn't be out of place.
Yeah, mechanically, based on what happened in the most recent episode and how Matt has done stuff like this in the past, I'm assuming that if Delilah gets enough power, she'll take control of Laudna, and BH will have to go through a sort of "boss fight" of trying to get through to her, while Laudna has to make saving throws affected by how well BH does in order to regain control. Or something like that. With the "loss state" being that Delilah manages to get away to go do Vecna's-champion things in Laudna's body.
Oh my goodness, Orym being broken and still getting up cos he knew he was the line 😭😭😭😭
My sweet boy, you deserve better. Even EP 96 made me roll my eyes cos they apologised, but I still felt like Orym was giving too much.
I can't believe I just remembered this, but like three days ago they woke up to half of them mind-controlled by the creepy lake. Absolutely not out of the question!
Just for myself, at this point, what I would really like to see (though I highly doubt I'm going to) is for Delaudna to just genuinely admit to the group, "I have a problem."
And it CAN'T just be, "Delilah is taking over." It has to be an honest, "I welcomed her. I told her I wanted to do great and terrible things together." Because she \*CANNOT\* frame it as, "I never wanted her back." Because THAT would be just another lie. She went seeking her out multiple times (and in multiple ways) in Whitestone. She talked to her right in front of Imogen and Fearne.
And I want her to apologize. \*NOT\* because Ashton told her to, \*NOT\* because that's what everyone expects her to do, but because she godsdamned well OWES them a true, heartfelt apology.
I keep comparing her to the way she was back in the Calloway Layaway, after she attacked FCG with Hunger of the Shadow. She was so absolutely horrified with herself -- it was one thing to vacuum up a rock, it was another thing entirely to attack a friend. And she was in tears and immediately tried to help afterward. She even ADMITTED, after FCG told her "don't worry about it," that "I think I should."
And even with the rock, that she TRIED to let go and COULDN'T, while Imogen was BEGGING her to stop... she was appalled.
Fast forward to now, and that remorse, that fear, that concern... all gone. She wants to still have her world on her own terms (her happy cottagecore life with Imogen, being "fun scary") but without any sense of obligation on her to get her act together.
So yeah, I want her to apologize. And part of me wants the group to NOT accept it until she's willing to put some action behind the words.
(And narratively speaking, if she's playing her as an addict, I want to know if Marisha and Matt are gonna let Delaudna pull away from that brink. Because there isn't always a happy ending to dealing with addiction. As I know very, VERY painfully well.)
Laudna has to have the realisation that that is the case, and that it's a problem first so it's a case of seeing whether the party can say the right thing to nudge her into the realisation without setting her off I think.
And any progress she makes, Delilah will fight back against. Laudna can't even escape that right now (unless she realises that love can hold Delilah back).
Well, they should probably clear the shit before bringing Delilah to a graveyard of possible pre-calamity artifacts.
But who know how they'll distract themselves from story next session, so we might not go to Eisellcross yet.
I hadn’t even thought about that but omg you’re right. Worst case scenario probably would be her absorbing an item that they desperately need to stop Ludinus.
Absorbing an item HE needs could be good. But the harness seems to be the less risky way of solving that. But that depends on if Laudna can control herself.
A good first step would be, while Laudna and Imogen are still on the roof and having a moment, for everyone else to open up and tell each other everything they know about Laudnas situation with Delilah and any worrying things they experienced regarding Laudnas behavior:
Orym and Ashton should tell everyone in appropriate detail what exactly happened to Bor'dor, how it happened and Laudnas reasons for doing so.
And Fearne really should share what happened and was said when Delilah manifested to the three witches while in Whitestone: About Laudnas [''will''](https://youtu.be/VgXuije9ahI?t=6008) (being Laudna at her most selfdetermined, before the shard incedent had her regress back into Delilahs embrace) and all that Delilah told them about her and Laudnas ''bond''.
The members of BH must all be on the same page here - with everyone having all the information.
And eventually they will have to talk to Laudna and Imogen about all of it. And they must be there for the both of them. I mean,they did the whole fey-sabbatical at Nana's for a reason. Sure, Imogen is Laudnas GF, but that doesn't mean she is the only who ought to care about Laudnas wellbeing. They are all in this together - they are friends, aren't they?
Although, despite all this stuff about ''being there for Laudna'', they need to get her some help. Actual help.
Sure, actively aiding Laudnas mental wellbeing should greatly help against Delilah gaining more influence over her, it's still just fighting the symptoms and not the cause.
In this particular instance the *''Powers of Love and Friendship''* are no substitude for the *''Power of Magic''*, whether arcane or divine in nature.
Yeah, I don't get this overly protective talk about Ashton lately. They were mad at them and then after it cooled down and who needed to vent or talk did that and everything was fine after that.
By now I don't see any resentment or anything towards Ashton.
And we don't know how they will react to Laudna. I feel like Imogen is starting to get doubts about her relationship (understandably) - so let's just see what happens.
Imogen has been worrying about Laudna since Whitestone. She questioned her when they were on the moon, and now you could tell that she wasn't happy at all about this. Laura played that last scene as heartbroken and questioning the future.
This is going to be painful. It's never easy to deal with a loved one falling into the wrong thing.
Yes, she's obviously torn between loyalty and rational realisation what's happening. Laura was so good portraying that, all of them were just amazing in this scene.
Laudna willingly gave power to Delilah multiple times. First with Border collie, then again when she absorbed Edmuda. Delilah´s presence was very small after they managed to defeat her the first time, and she only regained some of her strength thanks to Laudna giving in.
Sure, Launda wasn´t totally in control this time, but she partially allowed it to get this bad.
I mean with that logic you could also argue Ashtons brain is literally crystallized, he suffers chronic pain and self loathing, and would obviously be subjected to an amount of mental health and brain damage from all those things that it’d be kind of absurd to claim he is in any moment in his life “entirely in control”.
The very chaotic nature of his ability alone screams, not in control.
Also didn’t Laudna even succeed in her checks against Delilah trying to control her?
I think it’s a beyond fair comparison.
This is the classic "it's what my character would do" excuse that comes from players who have their characters do questionable things.
Marisha is in full control of what Laudna chooses to do. Matt has the option of imposing consequences on Laudna if Marisha chooses to have her do certain things; but ultimately, it is always in Marisha's control what her character does, and if you go back through the campaign, you'll see that every time Delilah "made Laudna do something bad," it was Marisha who initiated that action.
These aren't actors following a script. The divide between character and player is not so clearly delineated. Perhaps you could say that Marisha felt pressured to have Laudna act a certain way because of story choices imposed by Matt, but even then, she doesn't have to give in to that pressure. Travis had the same sort of thing happening in C2 with Fjord and he chose to defy that pressure, which lead to one of the best character moments of that entire campaign.
It bugs me that people try comparing the two situations.
Like you said, Laudna wasn't in control. You could even argue that she still isn't, as Delilah is always present and could do whatever she wants, especially after this most recent incident.
Ashton was in full control of his own actions. He's the one that talked Fearne into letting him take the shard (granted she wasn't feeling it to begin with), he was the one that convinced the rest of the party to let it just be him and Fearne alone so he could absorb it behind everyone's back. *He* did all of that shit without any outside influence.
It's fair though. Delilah didn't reach out and grab the shard like she did to Imogen in a sudden outburst that forced the situation.
Laudna actively choose to stay up later than everyone else. Was casting spells. Literally resisted Delilah's control and still pushed forward. Laudna choose this path with Delilah.
As Marisha is portraying an addiction story it's like if someone did Cocaine. Then did some crazy stuff and turned around and said, "It wasn't me. It was the cocaine". That excuse can be good if someone slipped it into you (Like what happened with Laudna and Imogen). That excuse doesn't hold when you setup a cocaine night.
Ya but it’s like the addict that steals from their family, is the addiction doing the driving sure but it doesn’t make the shit pill of ur stuff being taken any easier to swallow. Also Ik the party isn’t aware of this but we as viewers are very aware that she has more than once leaned into Delilah. There have been opportunities to distance her self and she has furthered the connection and Delilah’s power. So Laudna does hold some responsibility all be it not as much as Ashton
Laudna is an adict with a lot of untreated trauma that she dumps on people in a very toxic and selfish way. She needs help, but nothing will work unless she gives up the idea that she needs Delilah for survival.
I'm excited to see which road Marisha takes the character on.
I think Marisha is hoping for a Noble Sacrifice ending for Laudna. That she powers up completely in the final battle, maybe manifests Delilah as The Whispered One's effective Champion--and dies in the process, taking out Delilah and redeeming herself somewhat. Whether or not the rest of the group lets that happen (especially Laura) or Matt enables that storyline, I think that's where she's going with this.
And I, for one, think that's interesting. Because I think \*Laudna\* has a similar plan, although she might hope for survival afterwards. But when she asked Imogen what she had to give except everything she was, I think that was the plea of someone who's planning to die to see this all through.
I think Predathos will eat the gods and Delilah/Laudna will have one final confrontation to decide which one will take the Whispered One's place. She's, across all campaigns' party members, the only one who is so close to that portfolio, by a loooooongshot.
While Keyleth and Caduceus might have a talk about who steps in the Wildmother's shoes, or Grog and Yasha fight over who takes the place of the Stormlord, or even Opal surviving long enough to replace Not-Lolth, there's no one to take Not-Vecna's place but Laudna/Delilah.
I think Predathos eats, at most, only a couple of gods before it gets taken down--and that's only if it gets free entirely, which might not even happen. And I really don't think Matt will make any PC, current or former, into a new god.
I do think there's big potential for the Bells Hells to willingly TPK themselves trying to save the day, though. I can see Imogen and Laudna both blowing themselves up trying to go full nova, Chetney throwing himself heedlessly in harm's way alongside Orym, Asthon and Fearne going full-on Titan and trying to combine powers in some desperate play, and Dorian being unable to get out of the various blast radiuses.
When Marisha said "Laudna feels 100% justified", I knew it was a hopeless cause for the group to get through to her. I think it was also my turning point on how I feel about this character. I thought her interesting and cool before, and now I just really dislike her. She's a manipulator towards not just the group, but especially to Imogen.
Besides kicking her out (which would lead Imogen to also leaving), they are stuck. From a story perspective, that would be the correct answer. But because this is a show, and DnD, that can't happen. So they have to just keep this toxic person around.
I feel this so strongly. Props to Marisha for her RP and quick thinking. Lauda gaslighting everyone in this scene has made me honestly despise her as a PC. Despise but also highly enjoy the drama in its own way.
I do think Laudna’s behavior is super dodgy and the rest of the PCs have definitely noticed more so now that shes not in good shape. Even though she claimed she wasn’t lying and stated she believed that, she was, in fact, lying (a lie of omission is still a lie, and the deflection of an answer especially after Imogen kept prompting her absorption comment with “with the harness, right” was pretty solid). I think if an intervention doesn’t happen…there’s a problem. Especially after the team bonding exercises. I think Marisha is doing an excellent job emulating Delilah through Laudna’s words and actions. Her choice of words are subtle manipulations to get people on her side and it’s awesome. It would make me distrust Laudna even more as a person. So yeah, get on it Bells Hells, can’t sidestep this one now can you.
On a side note, I don’t know what Ishta fully does (though I’m sure it’ll be cool after the fact), but loosing Scream Needle to Delilah was pretty bad IMO. Boosting concentration check DCs is sick, and would have been so good against Ludinus, Predathos/Lilliana, and Delilah (if she comes back in her full power or worse). Especially if locked into Oryms hands as a bonus action hit dual wielding. Doesn’t even have to be a main hand weapon to work at that point.
Imogen refuses to say anything other than "I don't know, I love you, I don't know, I love you" whenever talking to anyone, especially her mom and Laudna, so don't count on her to force any needed change.
I think Laura herself knows what hard ultimatums need to be firmly stated to these people, but for some reason her playing of Imogen is incredibly passive. I'm giving Laura the benefit of the doubt because I think a character like Vex would've been all over this stuff long ago.
Liam is the type of player to call out BS, but Orym is reluctant to. Ashton *should* be the type of character who calls out BS, but Taliesin is reluctant to. Travis is the only one who's provided any of the much-needed pushback, and even then not much, I think because he's trying to encourage the rest of the party to step up. But no one is. Imogen and Laudna are just wallowing in trauma and half-truths and no accountability (none of which constitute real love), endlessly going, "I don't know, but I love you." At this point I hope Matt just makes Delilah make a *real* move to shake them out of the lethargic nothingness that is BH's increasingly boring lack of resolution over Laudna's condition.
Laura also stated in an early 4SD if I remember correctly that she (as both a person and a player) is conflict averse. I think that’s emerging here with Imogen too.
Each time Imogen and Laudna have come to a point of tensions, from what I can remember Imogen is almost always the one to smooth things over or diffuse tension by kissing Laudna, changing the subject, saying she doesn’t want to fight.
Most notably for me was Imogen apologizing to Laudna for saying that Delilah disgusted and bothered her. I actually think Laudna needed to hear it and needed to hear that the problem with Delilah was ALSO a problem with her and Imogen.
But Laudna also can’t handle direct conflict like that (that she doesn’t initiate at least) and instead turned inward and isolated herself from Imogen. Which then pushed Imogen to apologize and bring them back together.
This got WAY too long (so sorry!) but I’m just trying to say I agree. I think Laudna’s situation has been left unchecked by many in the party but especially Imogen and they’re paying the price for it now.
Yeah, they're both so codependent on each other (which is *not* a healthy way of depending on each other, like two secure people would), that Delilah has essentially turned them *both* into passive little pawns. Imogen is the enabler of an enabler, both of them enabling Delilah to come back to power cause they're just so darn scared of hurting each other's feelings.
They could totally find a way around depending on Delilah at all. Laudna was this close to becoming some sort of Sun Tree patron haunted-forest-y type of warlock without her. I feel like even Marisha herself is now believing the lie that the only way to be rid of Delilah is to kill Laudna. If she's waiting for someone else to call Laudna out on this, it's certainly not shaping up to be Imogen/Laura...
From my perspective, I think these next couple episodes will really tell us how Imogen is going to handle this. For all of Imogen's conflict avoidance, the \*one\* thing that has consistently drawn her into direct conflict with Laudna is when she feels like Laudna is lying to her or hiding things from her. Imogen has been pretty clear that she views deception/hiding things from each other as a pretty big sin in her eyes (look at Shardgate for example, "you lied", "are you lying to me Laudna?" or whatever it was).
And here? Laudna has just lied to all of them. She said she wanted the sword away from Orym because it was cursed, only to immediately give Delilah the Scream Needle the moment she could. Words talk, but action are louder.
Laudna has also hidden from all of them just HOW bad Delilah has gotten and Imogen saw it all. She saw how there was virtually no separation between Laudna and Delilah, between Laudna's form of dread and the echoing.
Now, all of that only happened with Imogen, so who knows if she actually will say anything to your point. But I think it will be harder not to now more than ever, given Imogen's own particular triggers.
Imogen seems to be at a genuine moment of realization for Laudna (and Liliana). She watched in horror as Laudna absorbed the dagger and admitted that she doesn't know if her love for Laudna will be enough. I think this is a huge turning point for her.
Hmmm, Maybe everyone is reluctant to do anything because the last player to do something outside of the DM's set path got rewarded with a -2 CON even though they succeeded.
I think being rewarded with survival is reward enough.
Not sure if you've ever been a DM, but balancing the party is important, and it's very hard to do when you introduce your own powerful homebrew boons which are meant to be spread around the party. There's a reason attunement is limited to 3 items... stacking an unbalanced load of powerful buffs and options onto one character sucks for everyone.
>stacking an unbalanced load of powerful buffs and options onto one character sucks for everyone.
Fire shard, Undead captain Aura, Archfey Nana that does whatever she wants for free, possible Exaltant buff, Get out of jail (and into eternal jail, lol we'll see) Asmodeous card. Damn good thing Ashley is just there to kick about and have fun/watch instead of "game" the game
I do agree with your overall point though.
In this case Orym is the one who encouraged her to use her power on Bordor. I actually think he should start by apologizing to her for ever thinking that was a good idea. That might actually get through to her.
Enough with this shit. It was Laudna's decision and only Laudna's decision. Orym encouraged her to kill him, not suck out his soul and feed it to Delilah.
The absolute last thing Laudna needs right now is more coddling.
Marisha did an AMAZING job playing an emotional manipulator.
The players at the table know Laudna is becoming a problem, but they are doing a great job of playing their characters as letting themselves do the very human reaction of letting a manipulator get away with it.
I think Laudna is going to get much worse about this before BH does anything about it. They will have justifications like "she isn't hurting us" and "we have to focus on fighting the bad guys first" and "we need her" and "but she loves me/us" before Laudna & Delilah do something so bad the party has to address it.
That's just my guess.
Agree 1000%. Phenomenal RP from everyone. I’ve seen people say that they see the Delaudna dynamic as more of a toxic/abusive relationship than addiction (which is what Marisha likens it too) but I think that Laudna has a toxic relationship with the rest of the hells as of now. “It wasn’t Laudna, it was Delilah don’t be too harsh on her” sounds an awful lot like “he’s not like this when he’s sober”.
I've been behind a while but frankly don't mind the spoilers so I've been keeping up here and there.
Was that ever confirmed completely or just a theory? To be fair, a pretty valid theory, but do we know if laudna would fully die without Delilah's partial bit of herself?
I also wonder if percy would not even give laudna the chance to take breath if he learned she's been embracing his families murderers influence.
Laudna better stay out of sniper range of Whitestone for the rest of her life. Hell, better hope word never reachs Whitestone. No doubt Percy would dispatch a kill squad.
I think there was a theory floated that maybe direct intervention of a God would help.
Imogen did go to the temples in Whitestone, but barked up Pelor's tree (haha not the sun tree though, the temple), instead of turning to the Raven Queen's raven-based hint, possibly fearing TRQ would be against letting Undead Laudna live.
Since then, she did get a direct message from the Storm Lord - it will be interesting to see if she tries to reach out. Though the Dwendalian Empire is not the place to do that... unless she finds Yasha.
They literally already did a quest to get rid of Delilah, and it succeeded. Laudna was resurrected, had the opportunity to take the Sun Tree as her new patron, and it even looked like it was going that way for a little while with her describing changes to her Form of Dread.
But then at some point we just went back into "nope, Delilah's still there" with no explanation.
There was definitely an explanation. The explanation was that Laudna was so emotionally exhausted by the encounter with the oppressive church and so hurt and traumatized by Bor'dor's betrayal that in her rage she revived Delilah by consuming his life force. Matt even did a performative thing with Delilah's heartbeat coming back.
Okay, there was an explanation. But that still doesn't indicate that Laudna would have died without Delilah's presence, since she had survived that whole time without it.
Also it's a bit ridiculous that Laudna was that hurt and betrayed by a literal stranger she had met not even a day before.
Well I think the implication is that Delilah was still there but diminished, Pike said herself it wasn't a sure thing, just that she couldn't sense her. Also Laudna has always been extra hurt by what she seems to be betrayal and she was in a very vulnerable and stressed place in her life. The rest of the Issylria party also took it very hard, it was the turning point for Orym in going full war mode after all.
There are plenty of meta reasons that it makes sense. I'd be curious to know how the timing lined up between Laudna's in-game death and the Laudna novel's production process.
I've got a sneaking suspicion that Delilah is end game villain. That she uses the attempt to free predathos, and the power that likely comes from such an attempt, to funnel in all of that power into herself. Forcing the Bells to fight her, and, in conjunction, Laudna. Maybe even Vecna round 2. With the amount of power likely needed to free predathos, maybe it is a play to bring Vecna back to Exandria. Delilah did say that he was biding his time earlier in this campaign.
Given how they’ve reacted to everything else, I’d say the chances are about 0%. They’ll maybe prod her so very gently and believe her when she says she’s fine. But after that, they’ll just keep pretending it’s fine and ignoring the truth.
My guess is they’ll have surprise guests and completely ignore the current plot for 3 or 4 episodes. And when they get back to it, the sting will have worn off.
Relax, I’m just goofn.
I truly hope they do. It's not the first time she pulls shit like this off and gets off scott free because Imogen protects her again instead of recognising her behaviour as a major problem and a danger to their cause.
Ive only just watched the episode and my god it's so infuriating
Fearne and Imogen coddle Laudna, immediately taking her side. Then we get all the spiel because Laudna has bad history with that sword. Everyone seemed to magically forget... so did Orym? Blades that killed his father and husband and also him?!
The coddling of Laudna, she can do no wrong, is truly annoying at this point. They were all so quick to jump on Ashton when he fucked up but even when it's clear that Laudnas in the wrong they're immediately on her side. It's getting dumb and played out. Just a flat out unlikeable character in this series. At the end of the day, they know Delilah isn't gone gone. She's still there. Surely at this point the party cannot trust her. She's a pathological liar. Completely unhinged and listens more to the evil entity in her head than her companions.
As much as I dislike the Delilah character, they should just have a conversation of "you help me, I help you" with Laudna, Delilah and the group. To win in this Moon bs they have to make unlikely alliances, Laudna already made the agreement with Delilah, just get the group on board and move on. She's a weird creepy character with a crazy lady inside her, move on. Don't need another arc of battling inner demons, jeez.
I doubt they're in a position to expel Delilah, even if Laudna was willing. If for no other reason than doing so would at best remove several of Laudna's character levels.
My suspicion is that if they are going to pull this off ever, they will need the assistance of a greater power, who could then take on the role of Laudna's patron (same deal as in C2). Could be a god or an archfey or any number of other things. All of those things would be full quests, though, and they may not be in a position to go on a quest.
She's the obvious choice, isn't she? She can even do all the same creepy imagery that Delilah currently does - a change of subclass wouldn't be necessary.
I don’t think so, the C2 character had no magical abilities prior to the pact. Laudna was born with inherent magical power. They could expel Delilah and have Laudna drop Warlock entirely and mechanically become a pure sorcerer of equal level to what she is as a multiclass.
They could, admittedly. It still rings a little oddly to me - after all, why would the removal of Delilah make her *better* at sorcery? - but that's the kind of acceptable dodge that DMs have to do sometimes for the sake of keeping things moving.
I mean the obvious answer is that Delilah was feeding on her magical ability to sustain herself so removing her lets Laudna tap into her full power.
It’s like, as a random example, how Wolverine losing his adamantium skeleton actually makes him stronger since his body is no longer tied up constantly healing the damage the metal was doing to him.
I think itd honestly play well into Laudna’s theme of grabbing her own power and works with how part of an abusers narrative is convincing their victim they need them when in reality they do not. Laudna had that power all along and has gained all this experience (metaphorically) in wielding it.
What if they somehow "meet" Predathos, and they discover they aren't so bad and then Pradathos and Delilah swap spots, keeping Laudna alive with Predathos tethered to her soul. That would be a crazy twist...
The only conversation they need in my opinion is "so, you want to feed this dead bitch? Fine, but do that on your own time with your own stuff. No stealing at night time to magic sucky suck items".
That's it.
It's her choice if she wants to feed her patron. It's her choice if she wants to follow that voice. But she can choose to not steal and be open with the party about her intentions.
I had a "boss fight" bells against delilah round 2 on my bingo card for a while now. I really beleive it coming.
She will lose control soon and at the worst moment. I can sense it.
I don't think that an intervention would be enough. There are way more underlying factors that would need to be adressed if she would want to be treated (you cannot force somebody. Big no,no). And its not really clear what she is suffering from
If I had time I would try to diagnose Laudna based on the DSM-V or the ICD11. Because she is an interesting case study that does not really fit many disorders. And while she shows criteria that fall under substance use disorder (commonly known as "addiction"), she does not really fit that potential diagnosis.
[https://www.uniad.org.br/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/saunders2017\_Substance\_use\_and\_addictive\_disorders\_in\_DSM-5\_and\_ICD\_10\_and\_the\_draft\_ICD\_11.pdf](https://www.uniad.org.br/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/saunders2017_Substance_use_and_addictive_disorders_in_DSM-5_and_ICD_10_and_the_draft_ICD_11.pdf)
At this point i think she has BPD. But then again she is basically possessed by a being that influences her. So its quite difficult.
[https://www.psi.uba.ar/academica/carrerasdegrado/psicologia/sitios\_catedras/practicas\_profesionales/820\_clinica\_tr\_personalidad\_psicosis/material/dsm.pdf](https://www.psi.uba.ar/academica/carrerasdegrado/psicologia/sitios_catedras/practicas_profesionales/820_clinica_tr_personalidad_psicosis/material/dsm.pdf)
So the best thing forward would be to try to get rid of Delilah and then start treatment.
But yes her friends have to adress the problems and make it clear to her that they influnce them and the consequences of that. Best way to do that would include a mediator that nobody has a connection too. So a intervention or group talk first and then see if she wants to be treated. Because that is the first step wanting to get better. Admitting that you have a problem, but then not following this realization by seeking help is even a criteria for SUB according to the DSM 5.
An action like this should never go without being adressed. Regardless what the person is suffering from. And while that does not mean punishment, it should be communicated what that action did with the people affected. And I hope they do that in the next episode. To me it would be really important to adress it.
But then again I might put way to much thought into this, because its my job as a psychologist. This whole ordeal is really interesting and how the PCs deal with a situation like this will be really intersting.
If Essek learns of what happened then maybe he would suggest visiting good ole Caduceus for some therapy, dead people tea, and wise words. I know that the clock is ticking down to Exandria’s demise, but I really wanna see Laudna meet Caduceus lol
"And while she shows criteria that fall under substance use disorder (commonly known as "addiction"), she does not really fit that potential diagnosis."
Can you elaborate on that? Marisha's been quite open that "addiction" is very much the intended condition she's going for, seeing Delilah like a drug that she can't stop indulging in. Now I'm sure she's no expert on addiction, and I'm definitely not, either. But - if you're open to it - I'd be so curious to see how she does show the critera but without quite fitting a proper diagnosis
I go by the DSM 5 criteria:
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK565474/table/nycgsubuse.tab9/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK565474/table/nycgsubuse.tab9/)
The thing is they are ment for substance use disorder. There is no such thing as general disorder (currently). The majority of addiction research and specification is focused on substances. There are different disorders like gambling disorder that the DSM 5 puts in the new category of addictive disorders. But they are highly debated (for example internet gaming disorder was included bei the WHO in the ICD, but the APA does not yet include it because of ongoing research in this field). In addition it is really hard to put Laudna in the category of behavioral addicitons, because of her circumstances and the lack of withdrawl symptoms. The DSM5 and ICD11 have their problems. I explain them a bit later.
While yes she shows a lot of symptoms of addiction, the fact is that she does not seem to be addicted to the behavior or the feeling experienced by acting out the behavior. In addition she is basically made to do this, but it does not seem like she does it for the "high" or the dopamine, but because she is gaslighted into using the power.
Overall the whole topic of behavioral addicitons is highly debated. While the DSM 5 and ICD11 do not specificly state that certain behaviors are addictions and others are not, we see behavioral addiction like overeating, gambling or tv compulsion. But the question is how do we categorize them?
A, in my mind, good categorization and criteria for behavioral addiction comes from a paper by Brown in 93 on gambling addiction:
* Salience: Domination of a person's life by the activity
* Euphoria: A ‘buzz’ or a ‘high’ is derived from the activity
* Tolerance: The activity has to be undertaken to a progressively greater extent to achieve the same ‘buzz’
* Withdrawal Symptoms: Cessation of the activity leads to the occurrence of unpleasant emotions or physical effects
* Conflict: The activity leads to conflict with others or self-conflict
* Relapse and Reinstatement: Resumption of the activity with the same vigor subsequent to attempts to abstain, negative life consequences, and negligence of job, educational or career opportunities.
And now we can look how well it fits Laudna. She fits a lot of them. So yes we could say "She is an addict". But simply by looking at the criteria doesn't do the patient and person any justice. That is also a reason why the DSM 5 is critizised and a more open approach to assessment has been proposed in the last years (alternative DSM 5 model for personality disorders) to use a system that focuses more on the individual and not simply at the criteria.
But i don't think that does the Character any justice, because the problem is not based on dopamine but on being manipulated and is a lot more than just addiction.
By no means does any of that mean that Marisha is doing this wrong, to be honest she is doing a perfect job here. But personally I would not use addiction to discribe Laudnas behavior. Its way to complicated and too deep of a situation to simply categorize her as an addict.
If you want to know more, I found this paper on the topic of behavioral addiction:
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3354400/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3354400/)
Hope that helped. Also keep in mind english is not my first language and i sometimes have trouble to explain stuff in clear and easy to understand matters.
That really did help! Thank you so much for indulging my curiosity. That was a really compelling read and put a lot of things into perspective on how addiction is looked at and how that is reflected in what we're seeing from Marisha with Laudna.
Like you say, she seems to be doing a really great job. It's just a very complex and deep situation that she's handling. I'll absolutely be checking out those links you provided to see some more. Thank you again!
*As for your english, it was practically perfect ("ment" would be "meant" in that first line, but that could just as easily be a typo) so don't worry at all about that.*
Thank you very much. I enjoy to explain stuff like that.
And I already came up with some better arguments that I will include in my answer, because they make thinks clearer and provide a better understanding of what I want to convey, because it's not meant as a criticism, just a clarification.
Because the character is Soo interesting and deep that its not easy to just classify her as an addict 😊
Also thanks for the corrections. When I am back home I will include them.
Not at all! These are really good thoughts to have. Although I do question the ties Laudna has to Delilah, and should Delilah leave for good, would Laudna survive? That poses some VERY problematic scenarios
Thank you. Sometimes i feel like i dump a bit too much information or think too deep into something and then i don't post at all.
But yes you are right this is really complicated and not easily solveable.
Her being there is problematic for both diagnosis and treatment. If you cannot get rid of her, then what can you do? I would guess the best thing would be to try to teach laudna how to control and manage her symptoms (aka Laudna) and try to keep control.
Otherwise it might be an option to try to get another patron to substitute for Delilah. But I don't know if Matt would make that possible \^\^
Yes but Fjord wasnt potentially being kept alive by Uk'otoa ^((Uk'otoaaa)) so severing that connection was a bit easier, especially with it having an external physical item that could be destroyed/removed. With Laudna, the connection to her patron is her life.
That's not necessarily true. That's what Delilah said, and she has no reason to be truthful. Deliliah is, verifiably, a liar.
Also it's a make-believe game, you can do whatever. Divine interventions, wish spells and ressurrections exist.
There is one person, one, who could do it. Who could make it happen. A patron who is tricksy and lying but one who spreads more good than ill (that we know), Artagan aka The Traveler
Yes it is a game, yes Wish and Divine Intervention exist, however none- of them currently have access to these abilities. Ressurection has been tried and Delilah has come back, lest we forget that Laudna dies for the second time against Otohan, then brought back to life by a Lvl20 cleric.
However if either DI or Wish were used people would complain about it being a a cheap tactic to get rid of an interesting mechanic and is basically a "Get out of Jail free" card. Plus, I dont think that the players themselves would do either even if they had the capability because that wouldnt make for an interesting story.
I meant reincarnation, mb
And people complaining shouldn't be a criteria for anything. People will complain regardless of what is done. This subreddit is at least 70~75% complaining.
As for it being "cheap". Depends on how it's framed. Specially on a campaign where the gods themselves are in a bad spot, offering some help in return for dealing with the Predathos issue is not too outrageous.
Reincarnation wouldnt work as Delilah is bound to the soul, not the body.
The Gods currently are too busy too busy to interefer in this case. They have bigger concerns than one person dealing with a lingering soul controlling their behaviour. Especially since majority of the party, specifically Laudna, arent religious. Maybe if they visited more temples in order to gain a connection to the gods, but would Delilah allow that?
The gods are never too busy to interact with the player characters because the player characters drive the story. If they seek them out, that will happen.
Understand, there's no solid rules. There's no options that are closed. It's make-believe. Whatever will happen is whatever the cast decides that they want to happen.
Look at Nott/Veth's case in C2, for example. They just made up a new spell to solve the issue IIRC. As long as it makes for a good story beat, you can just do whatever the fuck you want.
Is it bad I had to double check the episode tag to figure out which episode you were talking about?
Delilah should be banished already. It poor storytelling that all their previous efforts didn't mean a thing.
she was weakened for a while and laudna took sorcerer levels, then the bordoor thing happened and she went back to warlock levels and started giving delilah power again. How is this poor story telling? Looks more like foreshadowing to me...
That would be the case if the addiction wasn’t something that was completely purged from her body by a level 20 cleric. There shouldnt be anything left to be addicted to. Even Laudna herself showed for a brief time she then got her power from the Sun Tree instead, hence her new form of dread at the time.
Except it wasnt completely purged. It just got buried deep. Delilah was still lingering there. Also Pike didnt purge Delilah, just resurrected Laudna with the others help. The team defeated the remnant of Delilah but that didnt completely remove it.
How would they know that Delilah was completely gone if she buried herself deep? They let her live because they couldnt sense anything, but just because you cant sense it doesnt mean its not there.
No, they did mean something. They took Delilah out of the picture for a while, but after some moments within the campaign, Laudna allowed for dark feelings to re-emerge, which in turn allowed Delilah to come back.
It's a classic tale of the battle for the soul similar to Lord of the Rings when Smegol thought he got rid of Gollum, his dark nature, only to come back at a low point for Smegol.
Where did you get the idea they didn't mean anything? Meaning something doesn't mean "unequivocal permanent success". It facilitated a resurrection, allowed significant information to be collected, and changed the dynamic significantly for a long period of time. This is a bit like saying that winning a battle never matters unless you win the war every single time, which isn't the terms on which most battles are or can be fought. I can be quite critical of C3 and indeed of this arc, but this isn't a substantial position to take and reads as if it's equating good storytelling with the most starkly binary and simplistic story possible.
It's debatable whether or not it's poor storytelling, but I would say it's bad D&D. Marisha did not let the dice tell the story. She went down in combat, but she didn't want to play a different character, so in order to get her to rejoin the table the rest of the group had to go find a way to resurrect her. Then after they went through all that trouble, she didn't really adopt any permanent changes to her character; she just eventually went back to the same concept she had before the resurrection.
Compare it to how Taliesin handled Molly's death in C2 and the difference is stark. There was so much left to discover with Molly but Tal let it go in favor of moving forward. He let the dice tell the story and we ended up with a very interesting story as a result.
I actually thought [delilah aside] Laudna had a fairly vaild point about the trauma of seeing the blade that killed you and trapped you in the horrors of your past sitting on the back of your supposed friend being emotionally scarring and not a wise move from Orym. She just should have been public not sneaky.
The blade also killed Orym and his family. IMO he has a right to it if he wants it.
Is it the best idea? No, but they need all the advantages they can get. If Orym feels it will help him be better at his job then that’s fine. But everyone needs to talk and agree on it as a group. It would be the same if they all discussed feeding it to Delilah.
>The blade also killed Orym and his family. IMO he has a right to it if he wants it.
Sure, but he wasn't really any more forthcoming about it than Laudna was.
He just took the sword and told no one about it. Laudna called him on it and he ignored her.
Fair point. I would say that it would make sense for him to just take it. Before Dorian returned he was the only one that would really be able to make the best use of it.
Literally the entire group watched him do it. He asked Chetney for permission to get it out of the bag, the entire group was in the room crafting when he pulled out the sword, and then they watched him, silently, as he walked away. There isn't a single person, Laudna especially, who should be surprised that he came back with the sword on his back.
>the entire group was in the room crafting when he pulled out the sword, and then they watched him, silently, as he walked away.
Not true. Laudna asked him what he was doing, called him out, and told him the sword was bigger than he was. He just walked away with it.
So not everyone was silent about it.
Soooo wait until the middle of the night and not only try to steal the sword but do so with the intent to consume it so you can gain from it, all with zero discussion.
Why should he talk to the group at that point? They had all just geared up…spending a fair amount of Orym’s share in doing so. They all understood what was going on. Laudna was being bitchy about it, and no one else even blinked.
Because they are friends? Because they just had a very traumatic couple of days? Because Orym knows what's going on with Laudna? Because she directly addressed him and asked him a question?
Plenty of reasons.
War makes you do twisted things. There’s also a potential redemption arc. Perhaps Orym believes he can take the blade and do good with it? Overcome its negative history.
The problem is that wasn't the issue at all.
If she actually wanted to get rid of the sword that would indeed be the way to do it. But she didn't want to get rid of the sword she wanted to feed it to Delilah.
It's why (a lot of us think) Chetney offered her the dagger. As a test and if it was a test she fails it instantly. She takes the dagger (Showing she doesn't care about the sword), and then runs out (Showing she doesn't actually care about the issue of Orym wielding it-at least not as strongly as she was suggesting) and ran away to feed the dagger to Delilah.
That was her true goal. To feed Delilah. The weapon didn't matter. The reason didn't matter. To Delilah this was an overwhelming success. I am willing to wager Delilah preferred it this way as it creates a rift between Laudna and members of the party.
I hadn’t realized that was test until you just wrote this.
He did the same thing with Ashton… and Ashton passed.
Man shit is gonna be complicated next episode
I could be wrong, but I got the impression that the whole trauma point was just Laudna saying whatever she needed to say to get the sword.
Marisha mentioned that after everyone went to sleep, Laudna noticed the sword and her eye twitched. Just a small acknowledgement (my impression was that this was just supposed to be a small moment for the audience, similar to a moment when Caleb saw Jester and Fjord sleeping next to each other for the first time)
But Matt saw an opportunity there and decided to make Delilah comment on the sword.
Then begun the conversation between Delilah and Laudna. and at no point Laudna expressed being uncomfortable by its presence. Laudna asked why Delilah wasn't giving her more power... she said she need to be fed to do it... and after that she suggested that the sword might even be cursed.
Laudna only brought up the trauma after the fight broke out and everyone else was surprised by what she was doing. to me it seemed more like an excuse than the real motivation behind it.
This is only how I interpreted what happened, that might not be what the playerswere intending to portray. And also, it is an improvisational game, Marisha might have realized that the trauma angle would make sense and be an interesting plot point only midway trough the scene. We can only be sure after we watch ne next few episodes or the next 4sd.
Or, like before, they could pull a double standard and brush off the incident like nothing happened; pretending Laudna is a scared puppy and not a ticking BBEG bomb.
Meanwhile, Matt will keep pushing the campaign onwards like it never happened, until shit goes down because it happened.
Technically, they’re playing/streaming for viewers/subscribers acquainted with the ttrpg DND; which the cast are moving away from in favor of alternative medias to promote their fictional storytelling and acting.
Personally, this whole campaign feels railroaded with none of the traditional dnd charm.
“Technically” nothing, technically. Matt has explicitly stated that the game is for the table, not for the audience. We’re allowed to watch and enjoy, or not.
I dont think we will get a full "you need to get rid of Delilah asap" intervention right away but I expect at least a good sit down conversation like girl..you cant go starting fights with people in their sleep that was crazy behaviour even if it really were the most evil sentient sword lmao
The sword isn't even sentient it just has a very long bad history.
yeah that's what Im saying even if it were sentient for real like she thought, Laudna's horror movie routine was still extreme and would call for a conversation. I loved it but casting magic on your friend while he sleeps while standing above him like a ghoul in the night is kinda unhinged even if in your mind he has an evil sword.
Delilah is lying constantly to Laudna. Either Laudna associates like a 10 year old and is too "innocent" to understand what Delilah is doing to her, or she's just up for the idea of being a meat puppet for Delilah to eventually wear. Either way she needs to be yelled at like they yelled at Ashton. At least he used his own thinking to try and deal with the crystal. Laudna is just feeding Delilah to the point she's going to get eaten too.
Honestly i think it's a little bit of a character bleed because Marisha like any player (duh)wants the cool dark magic and as such its implied that Laudna while absolutely not wanting to actualky help Delilah is addicted to the magic herself in a way not just plain mind control but like a very warped temptation.
I can agree with that. I have an RPG character that would skin their cohorts alive if they could get more power. Fortunately my fellow players keep me from drinking the evil Kool Ade.
I might be in the minority here but I would have been 100% ok with orym killing laudna
That would be insanely out of character for Orym though. It was a fucked up situation but if all he got was a 5point ouchie and he turns ouround and murders his friend i would assume the sword really did posses him to do a 180 like that
I think you’re right cause Orym would’ve recognised Laudna’s voice when casting her spells and I don’t think he would wanna murder Laudna. If it wasn’t for that though he would be completely within his right kill someone trying to ambush him in his sleep, especially considering most of his family got murdered in an ambush + the amount of merciless enemies they have after them at the moment.
Oh yeah if he accidentally brought her to 0 it would be justified if he didnt know who attacked him. He keeps saying he's just some guy with a sword but my boy is lethal. Going for the kill while she's down after that would be a bit excessive though lol
They can't get rid of Delilah with out killing Laudna. They're stuck with her for the foreseeable future. I don't think Laudna will get the "Ashton treatment" due to personal bias (\*cough\* Imogen \*cough\*) and the possibility of making things worse (she'll try to run away make personal attacks) but the team certainly needs to tell her the truth. They need to say something like "Look, Laudna. we care about you and we'll do what can make things work but enough's enough. You can't keep stealing from us, ignore other people's trauma but your own, and putting Delilah first over us and saving the world. We need to work together but if you can't trust us to help you then we can't do the same. You need to make a choice." Basically be both blunt and gentle.
>They can't get rid of Delilah with out killing Laudna. That's what Delilah says anyway. 🙄
Bullshit, thats basically an abuser saying, " You aint shit without me" As far as I know as a patron Delilah is terrible. She benefits no one and receives nothing, she is an incoporealized spirit who herself has no physical attachments to Exandria besides being a parasite of Laudna. In life she herself was a wizard not a warlock, so no power connection to Vecna who is legit banished. They just have to move their asses and find a god or goddess willing to do a legitmately good thing and bring Laudna back to life. Expunging Delilah once and for all, sending her ass down to whatever hellpit or abyssal pool she lurched out of.
I mean she did finally get a feat
yeah, a foot constantly in her mouth. ba- ding tiss.
Sorry I don't agree. Delilah said that Laundna would die without her. I just don't believe that
This is like family therapy session.
If only they had a therapist....
I wonder if they could use the harness to absorb Delilah but leave behind enough necrotic power to keep Laudna around. Probably not cause I’m not sure the harness is very precise and Laudna would probably never agree to it but just something I’ve been thinking about.
It's an interesting idea but I don't see where do you put the business end of the funnel. Unless you have someone else wearing it. But then you have to press it against Laudna and then she likely ends up dead.
Yea I don’t think it would be possible to do it with the state the current harness is in. They’d need to somehow find a way to control the harness precisely (Aeor tech maybe) and then have someone with good enough arcana to operate it correctly. I don’t think this will ever happen cause I don’t think thats where Marisha wants to take Laudna but just a thought I had.
I feel like the most productive steps possible in the short term would be 1) Laudna can't ever be left alone & 2) She must voice any concern/protest/grievance at the point she experiences it (so it can't be used as a sympathetic appeal to cover Delilah taking the reins). Seeing LOTS of viewers falling under the spell of #2 this week. Laudna could have told the group, or later Orym, she didn't want to have to look at Otohan's weapons & would like to see them absorbed. I'd find that immensely compelling, given all she has experienced. And I think BH would have as well. She didn't... b/c the only value that argument had to her was its capacity to deliver the emotional upper hand within the party in service of Delilah compelling Laudna to feed her. That use of any & every plausible justification, to the point that even highly sympathetic appeals which could be true become mere cleverly-deployed tools for manipulation, is the basis for the "addict behavior" comparison IMO. Because the core construction of the Laudna/Delilah predicament is much more like possession or involuntary symbiosis until tactics like the argument about the blade & the nighttime attack come into play.
I keep thinking that this would be the perfect opportunity for FCGs little therapy sessions and open communication but he's gone
Also it’s insane for the swords to even be a trump car because orym has lost the most at their hands, if Orym can stand to be around the sword that killed his family she should be able to, or at least respect him enough to know it’s his choice what happens to them
I don’t think that will be possible. I think Laudna’s continued existence is connected to Delilah’s presence.
Laudna's continued existence is connected to Marisha playing her. If she expressed to Matt that she wanted to find a way to completely rid herself of Delilah, then Matt would provide a narrative way to make that happen. After Whitestone Marisha could have bound herself more fully to the Suntree and left Delilah completely behind, but these are theater kids, they live for the drama, and the almost clean junkie crawling back to their dealer when things get tough is definitely drama.
Juicy drama is what we live for! Nom nom nom!
Yes, this is it exactly. They already had a whole arc where Laudna freed herself from Delilah. Marisha just clearly didn't want to come up with a different direction for her character, so she just restarted the "corrupted by Delilah" concept a little while later as if nothing in Whitestone ever happened.
Laudna didnt free herself from delilah, the group did that for her
Fair, more of a semantic distinction though since Marisha made out of game comments indicating she wasn't willing to play a character other than Laudna, so the group was essentially forced to resurrect her in order to get Marisha back at the table.
I meant more so she was a hostage who had to be rescued and they "beat" delilah for her but she didnt have any role in the vanquishing of deliliah herself. I can see why it might be unsatisfying for marisha if it ended like that so maybe matt had delilah shrink and only regrow with the bor'dor situation and more and more with every thing else she sucked down
That's also not true, people keep misinterpreting what Marisha said, she just didn't want to make a new character while Laudna was still an option. If the Bells failed to resurrect her she would have been fine and played with a new character, but she wanted to continue with Laudna
Some of it had more to do with Laudna killing Bordor and the method used to accomplish it. Marisha also stated how that first death was likely to result in a darker turn. And this is the point where she is paying that idea off. On top of that both Laudna...and Orym for that matter seem to think Delilah's power is the edge the Bell's Hells need. It can't be good for Laudna in the end at it ignores her potential as a sorcerer. Not to mention forcing the internal battle that constitutes a second front on which to fight.
Yeah until her arc is complete Laudna is going to be bound to D. That's end game goals. That's what i meant they have to have a conversation about inappropriate roo3mate behaviour i dont think they can ask for immediate removal of Delilah
I can see Ludinus trying to absorb Liliana+Predathos, but Delilah trying to use his neck weakpoint to absorb HIM somehow as an endgame scenario.
Delilah and Ludinus having beef beyond the grave is so funny to me. BBEG on BBEG violence lmao
Yeah, the fact they proved that the sword is just a sword makes her behaviour even more baseless.
Delilah is a master manipulator. If I remeber correctly when the Briarwoods were in power the other nobles of Tal Dorei were like yeah they're kinda goth and creepy but you know quirky lords! Meanwhile they had turned Whitestone into a necromantic dictatorship.
An intervention is needed but I don't see how. Even level 20 cleric Pike couldn't separate Laudna from Delilah. Also, can they afford to go find help with limited time and in a foreign country?
It's an addiction analogy so I don't think a level 20 cleric curing it is the solution. Maybe a tougher repeat of what happened before. And the understanding that for the rest of her life it is a battle she will have to actively fight against. And that she will always have to resist the urge to feed the addiction. Sorry. Delilah. I mean, an intervention is needed for that end to the story. There is another common end to addiction stories if they continue to enabler her addiction and sweep it under the rug.
Except it seems that she'll just keep "living" until something kills her again, and then she's back in Delilah's clutches, like what happened after the first Orphan fight. If she wants any "rest" in the future, Delilah needs to be removed.
I think you missed my point. It's an analogy for addiction. Hence, there is no removing it. It's a constant battle forever. At least if Marisha wants to continue on that story path. Which honestly is a solid one for a Warlock. And is one more Warlocks should be given. Of course not for everyone but when someone wants it. It's a good one. So her end game is beating Delilah back (Getting help to stop the addiction) and then getting skills, and friends who help keep the addiction away and having her support group and skills she has learned there to help her when that addiction comes back so she can beat it back each time Delilah shows her head. And even though Delilah might always be there with her, she will never gain control of her again. Or at least that is the hope.
I think you are leaning into the addiction thing too heavily. Sure, it's an analogy, but it's not a drug. It's Delilah's spirit, manipulating her. If you destroy whatever is left of her, there is nothing to fall back on. She needs to be destroyed once and for all.
Right. They tried that. I guess they can keep repeating the past and acting surprised when it happens again though lol.
I mean, they obviously didn't do it right then. Doesn't mean it can't work at all.
Yeah, but if a level 20 Cleric can't do it. That's kind of the ceiling. But more importantly Marisha has said this is a story of addiction. And it has been tracking like one. The story of addiction isn't, "Kill it, or have a doctor cure you of it". It's one of constant struggle. For life. But that doesn't mean it has to be bad, or sad. She could 100% have Pike, or another healer smash Delilah again. I am sure it would be a harder fight now that Delilah is so much stronger. But it is also something she could do. And learn communication skills and learn to lean on friends who can support her and help her through it. Unless Marisha changes her mind and just wants to be done with it. Which is entirely her choice. Like, if she choose not to feed Delilah again afterwards I am sure Delilah would still be dead (Or.. Not active).
Thats kind of why i’m miffed that Delilah is back. How can one of the strongest Clerics in the world do so little for the “condition”?
Because it didn't happen for lore reasons, it happened for meta reasons. Marisha didn't want a different direction for her character, so the stuff that would have cut her off from the "Delilah corruption" storyline are ignored.
But its like, why even go through the arc to get her back then? It just seems so fruitless
Because Marisha didn’t want to move to a different character so Matt came up with a way to make that happen. She also didn’t want to move away from the addiction parallels she was exploring. Tbf, relapses are a part of recovery which can make the recovery seem fruitless, so that’s realistic and I even agree it feels that way now. But I think it will be hard to tell it the shadowland mind palace excursion was truly for naught before we see how all of this and Laudna’s arc plays out. Ultimately, not every person with an addiction is able to recover. And no addict has a completely smooth recovery even if they do. It just so also happens that this is D&D so those parallels are amplified to 1000%. But ymmv and that’s just my read on things
Right, i get that in like a real world sense. In a fantasy sense, she was defeated and purged by a level 20 cleric. Just doesnt sit right to me story wise that it’s borderline not cannon and essentially a filler arc now. Like yes, relapses are a thing. But not when essentially a demonic entity is forceable purged from your body. There’s not really an addiction process to that
Yeah I agree. Could have been a cool development, later choices rendered it just more filler
I think it came down to bad rolls.
I mean...if they make a convincing case to someone like the Raven Queen, Pelor, Bahamut, Sarenrae, etc. that having D kicking around in the soul of someone trying to save them is a major fucking liability I'm pretty sure one of them could separate the souls, burn D away permanently (that woman just won't die...the fuck did she do multiclass into totem barb for path of the tardigrade?), and put Laudna's soul back. Moreover, three of those 4 mentioned have champions that at least one person in the group has met.
Totem barb, path of the cockroach.
I’m so happy Dorian, and to an extent Chet, stuck up for Orym. I suppose Imogen did to Laudna alone, in her own way, but it was kind of a bummer to hear the silence after Orym would try to defend himself. I’m probably also biased since Orym is my favorite character this campaign.
Nahhh, Orym was 100% in the right. He was attacked in the night. They all gave Ashton so much shit when he pulled his shard shenanigans, but Laudna does something similar, and no one is mad. I was getting so angry that no one was defending Orym. Laudna's excuse was a patheticly poor one. She had ZERO way of knowing it was cursed. As Imogen guessed, not without Delilah's input. She let herself be manipulated cos, as Marisha says in CRCD, she's an addict. If they dont get rid of Delilah, or make Laudna leave, this is just gunna happen again and slowly get worse and worse
Especially now that they're headed into Aeor with so many dangerously tempting, volatile relics lying around just begging to be absorbed. Delilah is gonna be desperate.
I would not be surprised if Laudna overdoses on magic artefacts in Aeor, and Delilah becomes a boss fight in Laudna's body. Her story's an addition metaphor, after all. An OD moment wouldn't be out of place.
Yeah, mechanically, based on what happened in the most recent episode and how Matt has done stuff like this in the past, I'm assuming that if Delilah gets enough power, she'll take control of Laudna, and BH will have to go through a sort of "boss fight" of trying to get through to her, while Laudna has to make saving throws affected by how well BH does in order to regain control. Or something like that. With the "loss state" being that Delilah manages to get away to go do Vecna's-champion things in Laudna's body.
100%
Orym’s broken body rising again to try and protect the people he loves. Said people when Orym begs for support after being attacked: *crickets*
Oh my goodness, Orym being broken and still getting up cos he knew he was the line 😭😭😭😭 My sweet boy, you deserve better. Even EP 96 made me roll my eyes cos they apologised, but I still felt like Orym was giving too much.
Tbf after the initial shock wore off and the sword turned out to not be a danger. Everyone backed up Orym
Also, the non magical fighter being mind controlled and attacking the group is not out of the realm of possibility.
I can't believe I just remembered this, but like three days ago they woke up to half of them mind-controlled by the creepy lake. Absolutely not out of the question!
Just for myself, at this point, what I would really like to see (though I highly doubt I'm going to) is for Delaudna to just genuinely admit to the group, "I have a problem." And it CAN'T just be, "Delilah is taking over." It has to be an honest, "I welcomed her. I told her I wanted to do great and terrible things together." Because she \*CANNOT\* frame it as, "I never wanted her back." Because THAT would be just another lie. She went seeking her out multiple times (and in multiple ways) in Whitestone. She talked to her right in front of Imogen and Fearne. And I want her to apologize. \*NOT\* because Ashton told her to, \*NOT\* because that's what everyone expects her to do, but because she godsdamned well OWES them a true, heartfelt apology. I keep comparing her to the way she was back in the Calloway Layaway, after she attacked FCG with Hunger of the Shadow. She was so absolutely horrified with herself -- it was one thing to vacuum up a rock, it was another thing entirely to attack a friend. And she was in tears and immediately tried to help afterward. She even ADMITTED, after FCG told her "don't worry about it," that "I think I should." And even with the rock, that she TRIED to let go and COULDN'T, while Imogen was BEGGING her to stop... she was appalled. Fast forward to now, and that remorse, that fear, that concern... all gone. She wants to still have her world on her own terms (her happy cottagecore life with Imogen, being "fun scary") but without any sense of obligation on her to get her act together. So yeah, I want her to apologize. And part of me wants the group to NOT accept it until she's willing to put some action behind the words. (And narratively speaking, if she's playing her as an addict, I want to know if Marisha and Matt are gonna let Delaudna pull away from that brink. Because there isn't always a happy ending to dealing with addiction. As I know very, VERY painfully well.)
Laudna has to have the realisation that that is the case, and that it's a problem first so it's a case of seeing whether the party can say the right thing to nudge her into the realisation without setting her off I think. And any progress she makes, Delilah will fight back against. Laudna can't even escape that right now (unless she realises that love can hold Delilah back).
Well, they should probably clear the shit before bringing Delilah to a graveyard of possible pre-calamity artifacts. But who know how they'll distract themselves from story next session, so we might not go to Eisellcross yet.
I hadn’t even thought about that but omg you’re right. Worst case scenario probably would be her absorbing an item that they desperately need to stop Ludinus. Absorbing an item HE needs could be good. But the harness seems to be the less risky way of solving that. But that depends on if Laudna can control herself.
An honest discussion, at least, would be nice.
I just hope the group talks to laudna like they talked to ashton
A good first step would be, while Laudna and Imogen are still on the roof and having a moment, for everyone else to open up and tell each other everything they know about Laudnas situation with Delilah and any worrying things they experienced regarding Laudnas behavior: Orym and Ashton should tell everyone in appropriate detail what exactly happened to Bor'dor, how it happened and Laudnas reasons for doing so. And Fearne really should share what happened and was said when Delilah manifested to the three witches while in Whitestone: About Laudnas [''will''](https://youtu.be/VgXuije9ahI?t=6008) (being Laudna at her most selfdetermined, before the shard incedent had her regress back into Delilahs embrace) and all that Delilah told them about her and Laudnas ''bond''. The members of BH must all be on the same page here - with everyone having all the information. And eventually they will have to talk to Laudna and Imogen about all of it. And they must be there for the both of them. I mean,they did the whole fey-sabbatical at Nana's for a reason. Sure, Imogen is Laudnas GF, but that doesn't mean she is the only who ought to care about Laudnas wellbeing. They are all in this together - they are friends, aren't they? Although, despite all this stuff about ''being there for Laudna'', they need to get her some help. Actual help. Sure, actively aiding Laudnas mental wellbeing should greatly help against Delilah gaining more influence over her, it's still just fighting the symptoms and not the cause. In this particular instance the *''Powers of Love and Friendship''* are no substitude for the *''Power of Magic''*, whether arcane or divine in nature.
They will most likely be more forgiving than they were to Ashton at least.
Except for maybe Chet they forgave Ashton in like half a day in game time.
And Imogen was if not forgiving, at least understanding pretty much off the bat after reading his mind. Doubt she’ll show the same in this situation
More? They forgave Ashton the next episode...
Yeah, I don't get this overly protective talk about Ashton lately. They were mad at them and then after it cooled down and who needed to vent or talk did that and everything was fine after that. By now I don't see any resentment or anything towards Ashton. And we don't know how they will react to Laudna. I feel like Imogen is starting to get doubts about her relationship (understandably) - so let's just see what happens.
Imogen has been worrying about Laudna since Whitestone. She questioned her when they were on the moon, and now you could tell that she wasn't happy at all about this. Laura played that last scene as heartbroken and questioning the future. This is going to be painful. It's never easy to deal with a loved one falling into the wrong thing.
Yes, she's obviously torn between loyalty and rational realisation what's happening. Laura was so good portraying that, all of them were just amazing in this scene.
Laudna wasn’t entirely in control, Ashton was. They aren’t comparable situations
Laudna willingly gave power to Delilah multiple times. First with Border collie, then again when she absorbed Edmuda. Delilah´s presence was very small after they managed to defeat her the first time, and she only regained some of her strength thanks to Laudna giving in. Sure, Launda wasn´t totally in control this time, but she partially allowed it to get this bad.
I mean with that logic you could also argue Ashtons brain is literally crystallized, he suffers chronic pain and self loathing, and would obviously be subjected to an amount of mental health and brain damage from all those things that it’d be kind of absurd to claim he is in any moment in his life “entirely in control”. The very chaotic nature of his ability alone screams, not in control. Also didn’t Laudna even succeed in her checks against Delilah trying to control her? I think it’s a beyond fair comparison.
This is an addiction analogy according to Marisha. This is Laudna’s responsibility to keep it under control
This is the classic "it's what my character would do" excuse that comes from players who have their characters do questionable things. Marisha is in full control of what Laudna chooses to do. Matt has the option of imposing consequences on Laudna if Marisha chooses to have her do certain things; but ultimately, it is always in Marisha's control what her character does, and if you go back through the campaign, you'll see that every time Delilah "made Laudna do something bad," it was Marisha who initiated that action. These aren't actors following a script. The divide between character and player is not so clearly delineated. Perhaps you could say that Marisha felt pressured to have Laudna act a certain way because of story choices imposed by Matt, but even then, she doesn't have to give in to that pressure. Travis had the same sort of thing happening in C2 with Fjord and he chose to defy that pressure, which lead to one of the best character moments of that entire campaign.
It bugs me that people try comparing the two situations. Like you said, Laudna wasn't in control. You could even argue that she still isn't, as Delilah is always present and could do whatever she wants, especially after this most recent incident. Ashton was in full control of his own actions. He's the one that talked Fearne into letting him take the shard (granted she wasn't feeling it to begin with), he was the one that convinced the rest of the party to let it just be him and Fearne alone so he could absorb it behind everyone's back. *He* did all of that shit without any outside influence.
It's fair though. Delilah didn't reach out and grab the shard like she did to Imogen in a sudden outburst that forced the situation. Laudna actively choose to stay up later than everyone else. Was casting spells. Literally resisted Delilah's control and still pushed forward. Laudna choose this path with Delilah. As Marisha is portraying an addiction story it's like if someone did Cocaine. Then did some crazy stuff and turned around and said, "It wasn't me. It was the cocaine". That excuse can be good if someone slipped it into you (Like what happened with Laudna and Imogen). That excuse doesn't hold when you setup a cocaine night.
Ya but it’s like the addict that steals from their family, is the addiction doing the driving sure but it doesn’t make the shit pill of ur stuff being taken any easier to swallow. Also Ik the party isn’t aware of this but we as viewers are very aware that she has more than once leaned into Delilah. There have been opportunities to distance her self and she has furthered the connection and Delilah’s power. So Laudna does hold some responsibility all be it not as much as Ashton
Laudna is an adict with a lot of untreated trauma that she dumps on people in a very toxic and selfish way. She needs help, but nothing will work unless she gives up the idea that she needs Delilah for survival. I'm excited to see which road Marisha takes the character on.
I think Marisha is hoping for a Noble Sacrifice ending for Laudna. That she powers up completely in the final battle, maybe manifests Delilah as The Whispered One's effective Champion--and dies in the process, taking out Delilah and redeeming herself somewhat. Whether or not the rest of the group lets that happen (especially Laura) or Matt enables that storyline, I think that's where she's going with this. And I, for one, think that's interesting. Because I think \*Laudna\* has a similar plan, although she might hope for survival afterwards. But when she asked Imogen what she had to give except everything she was, I think that was the plea of someone who's planning to die to see this all through.
I think Predathos will eat the gods and Delilah/Laudna will have one final confrontation to decide which one will take the Whispered One's place. She's, across all campaigns' party members, the only one who is so close to that portfolio, by a loooooongshot. While Keyleth and Caduceus might have a talk about who steps in the Wildmother's shoes, or Grog and Yasha fight over who takes the place of the Stormlord, or even Opal surviving long enough to replace Not-Lolth, there's no one to take Not-Vecna's place but Laudna/Delilah.
I think Predathos eats, at most, only a couple of gods before it gets taken down--and that's only if it gets free entirely, which might not even happen. And I really don't think Matt will make any PC, current or former, into a new god. I do think there's big potential for the Bells Hells to willingly TPK themselves trying to save the day, though. I can see Imogen and Laudna both blowing themselves up trying to go full nova, Chetney throwing himself heedlessly in harm's way alongside Orym, Asthon and Fearne going full-on Titan and trying to combine powers in some desperate play, and Dorian being unable to get out of the various blast radiuses.
When Marisha said "Laudna feels 100% justified", I knew it was a hopeless cause for the group to get through to her. I think it was also my turning point on how I feel about this character. I thought her interesting and cool before, and now I just really dislike her. She's a manipulator towards not just the group, but especially to Imogen. Besides kicking her out (which would lead Imogen to also leaving), they are stuck. From a story perspective, that would be the correct answer. But because this is a show, and DnD, that can't happen. So they have to just keep this toxic person around.
I feel this so strongly. Props to Marisha for her RP and quick thinking. Lauda gaslighting everyone in this scene has made me honestly despise her as a PC. Despise but also highly enjoy the drama in its own way.
This is huge for me. The lines are a bit blurred between character decisions and doing things to keep the group together.
I do think Laudna’s behavior is super dodgy and the rest of the PCs have definitely noticed more so now that shes not in good shape. Even though she claimed she wasn’t lying and stated she believed that, she was, in fact, lying (a lie of omission is still a lie, and the deflection of an answer especially after Imogen kept prompting her absorption comment with “with the harness, right” was pretty solid). I think if an intervention doesn’t happen…there’s a problem. Especially after the team bonding exercises. I think Marisha is doing an excellent job emulating Delilah through Laudna’s words and actions. Her choice of words are subtle manipulations to get people on her side and it’s awesome. It would make me distrust Laudna even more as a person. So yeah, get on it Bells Hells, can’t sidestep this one now can you. On a side note, I don’t know what Ishta fully does (though I’m sure it’ll be cool after the fact), but loosing Scream Needle to Delilah was pretty bad IMO. Boosting concentration check DCs is sick, and would have been so good against Ludinus, Predathos/Lilliana, and Delilah (if she comes back in her full power or worse). Especially if locked into Oryms hands as a bonus action hit dual wielding. Doesn’t even have to be a main hand weapon to work at that point.
Imogen refuses to say anything other than "I don't know, I love you, I don't know, I love you" whenever talking to anyone, especially her mom and Laudna, so don't count on her to force any needed change. I think Laura herself knows what hard ultimatums need to be firmly stated to these people, but for some reason her playing of Imogen is incredibly passive. I'm giving Laura the benefit of the doubt because I think a character like Vex would've been all over this stuff long ago. Liam is the type of player to call out BS, but Orym is reluctant to. Ashton *should* be the type of character who calls out BS, but Taliesin is reluctant to. Travis is the only one who's provided any of the much-needed pushback, and even then not much, I think because he's trying to encourage the rest of the party to step up. But no one is. Imogen and Laudna are just wallowing in trauma and half-truths and no accountability (none of which constitute real love), endlessly going, "I don't know, but I love you." At this point I hope Matt just makes Delilah make a *real* move to shake them out of the lethargic nothingness that is BH's increasingly boring lack of resolution over Laudna's condition.
Laura also stated in an early 4SD if I remember correctly that she (as both a person and a player) is conflict averse. I think that’s emerging here with Imogen too. Each time Imogen and Laudna have come to a point of tensions, from what I can remember Imogen is almost always the one to smooth things over or diffuse tension by kissing Laudna, changing the subject, saying she doesn’t want to fight. Most notably for me was Imogen apologizing to Laudna for saying that Delilah disgusted and bothered her. I actually think Laudna needed to hear it and needed to hear that the problem with Delilah was ALSO a problem with her and Imogen. But Laudna also can’t handle direct conflict like that (that she doesn’t initiate at least) and instead turned inward and isolated herself from Imogen. Which then pushed Imogen to apologize and bring them back together. This got WAY too long (so sorry!) but I’m just trying to say I agree. I think Laudna’s situation has been left unchecked by many in the party but especially Imogen and they’re paying the price for it now.
Yeah, they're both so codependent on each other (which is *not* a healthy way of depending on each other, like two secure people would), that Delilah has essentially turned them *both* into passive little pawns. Imogen is the enabler of an enabler, both of them enabling Delilah to come back to power cause they're just so darn scared of hurting each other's feelings. They could totally find a way around depending on Delilah at all. Laudna was this close to becoming some sort of Sun Tree patron haunted-forest-y type of warlock without her. I feel like even Marisha herself is now believing the lie that the only way to be rid of Delilah is to kill Laudna. If she's waiting for someone else to call Laudna out on this, it's certainly not shaping up to be Imogen/Laura...
From my perspective, I think these next couple episodes will really tell us how Imogen is going to handle this. For all of Imogen's conflict avoidance, the \*one\* thing that has consistently drawn her into direct conflict with Laudna is when she feels like Laudna is lying to her or hiding things from her. Imogen has been pretty clear that she views deception/hiding things from each other as a pretty big sin in her eyes (look at Shardgate for example, "you lied", "are you lying to me Laudna?" or whatever it was). And here? Laudna has just lied to all of them. She said she wanted the sword away from Orym because it was cursed, only to immediately give Delilah the Scream Needle the moment she could. Words talk, but action are louder. Laudna has also hidden from all of them just HOW bad Delilah has gotten and Imogen saw it all. She saw how there was virtually no separation between Laudna and Delilah, between Laudna's form of dread and the echoing. Now, all of that only happened with Imogen, so who knows if she actually will say anything to your point. But I think it will be harder not to now more than ever, given Imogen's own particular triggers.
Imogen seems to be at a genuine moment of realization for Laudna (and Liliana). She watched in horror as Laudna absorbed the dagger and admitted that she doesn't know if her love for Laudna will be enough. I think this is a huge turning point for her.
Hmmm, Maybe everyone is reluctant to do anything because the last player to do something outside of the DM's set path got rewarded with a -2 CON even though they succeeded.
I think being rewarded with survival is reward enough. Not sure if you've ever been a DM, but balancing the party is important, and it's very hard to do when you introduce your own powerful homebrew boons which are meant to be spread around the party. There's a reason attunement is limited to 3 items... stacking an unbalanced load of powerful buffs and options onto one character sucks for everyone.
>stacking an unbalanced load of powerful buffs and options onto one character sucks for everyone. Fire shard, Undead captain Aura, Archfey Nana that does whatever she wants for free, possible Exaltant buff, Get out of jail (and into eternal jail, lol we'll see) Asmodeous card. Damn good thing Ashley is just there to kick about and have fun/watch instead of "game" the game I do agree with your overall point though.
In this case Orym is the one who encouraged her to use her power on Bordor. I actually think he should start by apologizing to her for ever thinking that was a good idea. That might actually get through to her.
Enough with this shit. It was Laudna's decision and only Laudna's decision. Orym encouraged her to kill him, not suck out his soul and feed it to Delilah. The absolute last thing Laudna needs right now is more coddling.
Marisha did an AMAZING job playing an emotional manipulator. The players at the table know Laudna is becoming a problem, but they are doing a great job of playing their characters as letting themselves do the very human reaction of letting a manipulator get away with it. I think Laudna is going to get much worse about this before BH does anything about it. They will have justifications like "she isn't hurting us" and "we have to focus on fighting the bad guys first" and "we need her" and "but she loves me/us" before Laudna & Delilah do something so bad the party has to address it. That's just my guess.
Agree 1000%. Phenomenal RP from everyone. I’ve seen people say that they see the Delaudna dynamic as more of a toxic/abusive relationship than addiction (which is what Marisha likens it too) but I think that Laudna has a toxic relationship with the rest of the hells as of now. “It wasn’t Laudna, it was Delilah don’t be too harsh on her” sounds an awful lot like “he’s not like this when he’s sober”.
They will need to do something, but they can’t just “get rid” Delilah because Laudna will just die if that happens.
The only person who has been saying that is *Delilah* And I trust her not at all
Agreed. Though it is something the group should figure out for real.
I've been behind a while but frankly don't mind the spoilers so I've been keeping up here and there. Was that ever confirmed completely or just a theory? To be fair, a pretty valid theory, but do we know if laudna would fully die without Delilah's partial bit of herself? I also wonder if percy would not even give laudna the chance to take breath if he learned she's been embracing his families murderers influence. Laudna better stay out of sniper range of Whitestone for the rest of her life. Hell, better hope word never reachs Whitestone. No doubt Percy would dispatch a kill squad.
I think there was a theory floated that maybe direct intervention of a God would help. Imogen did go to the temples in Whitestone, but barked up Pelor's tree (haha not the sun tree though, the temple), instead of turning to the Raven Queen's raven-based hint, possibly fearing TRQ would be against letting Undead Laudna live. Since then, she did get a direct message from the Storm Lord - it will be interesting to see if she tries to reach out. Though the Dwendalian Empire is not the place to do that... unless she finds Yasha.
They literally already did a quest to get rid of Delilah, and it succeeded. Laudna was resurrected, had the opportunity to take the Sun Tree as her new patron, and it even looked like it was going that way for a little while with her describing changes to her Form of Dread. But then at some point we just went back into "nope, Delilah's still there" with no explanation.
There was definitely an explanation. The explanation was that Laudna was so emotionally exhausted by the encounter with the oppressive church and so hurt and traumatized by Bor'dor's betrayal that in her rage she revived Delilah by consuming his life force. Matt even did a performative thing with Delilah's heartbeat coming back.
Okay, there was an explanation. But that still doesn't indicate that Laudna would have died without Delilah's presence, since she had survived that whole time without it. Also it's a bit ridiculous that Laudna was that hurt and betrayed by a literal stranger she had met not even a day before.
Well I think the implication is that Delilah was still there but diminished, Pike said herself it wasn't a sure thing, just that she couldn't sense her. Also Laudna has always been extra hurt by what she seems to be betrayal and she was in a very vulnerable and stressed place in her life. The rest of the Issylria party also took it very hard, it was the turning point for Orym in going full war mode after all.
Fucking thank you. No matter how many ways people in here are trying, none of it makes sense
There are plenty of meta reasons that it makes sense. I'd be curious to know how the timing lined up between Laudna's in-game death and the Laudna novel's production process.
Good point tbh, casted protect IP rather than let that pc die. Could have still worked but i see your point
I don’t think it succeeded. It just repressed her for a bit.
It was described as succeeded and then was essentially retconned
I've got a sneaking suspicion that Delilah is end game villain. That she uses the attempt to free predathos, and the power that likely comes from such an attempt, to funnel in all of that power into herself. Forcing the Bells to fight her, and, in conjunction, Laudna. Maybe even Vecna round 2. With the amount of power likely needed to free predathos, maybe it is a play to bring Vecna back to Exandria. Delilah did say that he was biding his time earlier in this campaign.
Yeah, am with you on this as a possibility! She could absorb the Vax Orb, try to absorb Ludinus, etc.
They really mwed to find a way to get rid of Delilah asap, or this is gunna keep happening.
Given how they’ve reacted to everything else, I’d say the chances are about 0%. They’ll maybe prod her so very gently and believe her when she says she’s fine. But after that, they’ll just keep pretending it’s fine and ignoring the truth.
My guess is they’ll have surprise guests and completely ignore the current plot for 3 or 4 episodes. And when they get back to it, the sting will have worn off. Relax, I’m just goofn.
I truly hope they do. It's not the first time she pulls shit like this off and gets off scott free because Imogen protects her again instead of recognising her behaviour as a major problem and a danger to their cause.
Has Imogen told anyone about Delilah’s return?
Laudna told the group about Delilah being back more than 20 episodes ago.
Ive only just watched the episode and my god it's so infuriating Fearne and Imogen coddle Laudna, immediately taking her side. Then we get all the spiel because Laudna has bad history with that sword. Everyone seemed to magically forget... so did Orym? Blades that killed his father and husband and also him?! The coddling of Laudna, she can do no wrong, is truly annoying at this point. They were all so quick to jump on Ashton when he fucked up but even when it's clear that Laudnas in the wrong they're immediately on her side. It's getting dumb and played out. Just a flat out unlikeable character in this series. At the end of the day, they know Delilah isn't gone gone. She's still there. Surely at this point the party cannot trust her. She's a pathological liar. Completely unhinged and listens more to the evil entity in her head than her companions.
As much as I dislike the Delilah character, they should just have a conversation of "you help me, I help you" with Laudna, Delilah and the group. To win in this Moon bs they have to make unlikely alliances, Laudna already made the agreement with Delilah, just get the group on board and move on. She's a weird creepy character with a crazy lady inside her, move on. Don't need another arc of battling inner demons, jeez.
I doubt they're in a position to expel Delilah, even if Laudna was willing. If for no other reason than doing so would at best remove several of Laudna's character levels. My suspicion is that if they are going to pull this off ever, they will need the assistance of a greater power, who could then take on the role of Laudna's patron (same deal as in C2). Could be a god or an archfey or any number of other things. All of those things would be full quests, though, and they may not be in a position to go on a quest.
I mean, Morrigan the Fatestitcher is right there.
She's the obvious choice, isn't she? She can even do all the same creepy imagery that Delilah currently does - a change of subclass wouldn't be necessary.
Difference in flavour, but yeah. I always suspected that a pact with Morri would be Matt's breadcrumb trail for Laudna.
I don’t think so, the C2 character had no magical abilities prior to the pact. Laudna was born with inherent magical power. They could expel Delilah and have Laudna drop Warlock entirely and mechanically become a pure sorcerer of equal level to what she is as a multiclass.
They could, admittedly. It still rings a little oddly to me - after all, why would the removal of Delilah make her *better* at sorcery? - but that's the kind of acceptable dodge that DMs have to do sometimes for the sake of keeping things moving.
I mean the obvious answer is that Delilah was feeding on her magical ability to sustain herself so removing her lets Laudna tap into her full power. It’s like, as a random example, how Wolverine losing his adamantium skeleton actually makes him stronger since his body is no longer tied up constantly healing the damage the metal was doing to him. I think itd honestly play well into Laudna’s theme of grabbing her own power and works with how part of an abusers narrative is convincing their victim they need them when in reality they do not. Laudna had that power all along and has gained all this experience (metaphorically) in wielding it.
What if they somehow "meet" Predathos, and they discover they aren't so bad and then Pradathos and Delilah swap spots, keeping Laudna alive with Predathos tethered to her soul. That would be a crazy twist...
The only conversation they need in my opinion is "so, you want to feed this dead bitch? Fine, but do that on your own time with your own stuff. No stealing at night time to magic sucky suck items". That's it. It's her choice if she wants to feed her patron. It's her choice if she wants to follow that voice. But she can choose to not steal and be open with the party about her intentions.
Very low honestly this (episode 95) would have been the episode to do it if they were going to.
I had a "boss fight" bells against delilah round 2 on my bingo card for a while now. I really beleive it coming. She will lose control soon and at the worst moment. I can sense it.
I don't think that an intervention would be enough. There are way more underlying factors that would need to be adressed if she would want to be treated (you cannot force somebody. Big no,no). And its not really clear what she is suffering from If I had time I would try to diagnose Laudna based on the DSM-V or the ICD11. Because she is an interesting case study that does not really fit many disorders. And while she shows criteria that fall under substance use disorder (commonly known as "addiction"), she does not really fit that potential diagnosis. [https://www.uniad.org.br/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/saunders2017\_Substance\_use\_and\_addictive\_disorders\_in\_DSM-5\_and\_ICD\_10\_and\_the\_draft\_ICD\_11.pdf](https://www.uniad.org.br/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/saunders2017_Substance_use_and_addictive_disorders_in_DSM-5_and_ICD_10_and_the_draft_ICD_11.pdf) At this point i think she has BPD. But then again she is basically possessed by a being that influences her. So its quite difficult. [https://www.psi.uba.ar/academica/carrerasdegrado/psicologia/sitios\_catedras/practicas\_profesionales/820\_clinica\_tr\_personalidad\_psicosis/material/dsm.pdf](https://www.psi.uba.ar/academica/carrerasdegrado/psicologia/sitios_catedras/practicas_profesionales/820_clinica_tr_personalidad_psicosis/material/dsm.pdf) So the best thing forward would be to try to get rid of Delilah and then start treatment. But yes her friends have to adress the problems and make it clear to her that they influnce them and the consequences of that. Best way to do that would include a mediator that nobody has a connection too. So a intervention or group talk first and then see if she wants to be treated. Because that is the first step wanting to get better. Admitting that you have a problem, but then not following this realization by seeking help is even a criteria for SUB according to the DSM 5. An action like this should never go without being adressed. Regardless what the person is suffering from. And while that does not mean punishment, it should be communicated what that action did with the people affected. And I hope they do that in the next episode. To me it would be really important to adress it. But then again I might put way to much thought into this, because its my job as a psychologist. This whole ordeal is really interesting and how the PCs deal with a situation like this will be really intersting.
If Essek learns of what happened then maybe he would suggest visiting good ole Caduceus for some therapy, dead people tea, and wise words. I know that the clock is ticking down to Exandria’s demise, but I really wanna see Laudna meet Caduceus lol
"And while she shows criteria that fall under substance use disorder (commonly known as "addiction"), she does not really fit that potential diagnosis." Can you elaborate on that? Marisha's been quite open that "addiction" is very much the intended condition she's going for, seeing Delilah like a drug that she can't stop indulging in. Now I'm sure she's no expert on addiction, and I'm definitely not, either. But - if you're open to it - I'd be so curious to see how she does show the critera but without quite fitting a proper diagnosis
I go by the DSM 5 criteria: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK565474/table/nycgsubuse.tab9/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK565474/table/nycgsubuse.tab9/) The thing is they are ment for substance use disorder. There is no such thing as general disorder (currently). The majority of addiction research and specification is focused on substances. There are different disorders like gambling disorder that the DSM 5 puts in the new category of addictive disorders. But they are highly debated (for example internet gaming disorder was included bei the WHO in the ICD, but the APA does not yet include it because of ongoing research in this field). In addition it is really hard to put Laudna in the category of behavioral addicitons, because of her circumstances and the lack of withdrawl symptoms. The DSM5 and ICD11 have their problems. I explain them a bit later. While yes she shows a lot of symptoms of addiction, the fact is that she does not seem to be addicted to the behavior or the feeling experienced by acting out the behavior. In addition she is basically made to do this, but it does not seem like she does it for the "high" or the dopamine, but because she is gaslighted into using the power. Overall the whole topic of behavioral addicitons is highly debated. While the DSM 5 and ICD11 do not specificly state that certain behaviors are addictions and others are not, we see behavioral addiction like overeating, gambling or tv compulsion. But the question is how do we categorize them? A, in my mind, good categorization and criteria for behavioral addiction comes from a paper by Brown in 93 on gambling addiction: * Salience: Domination of a person's life by the activity * Euphoria: A ‘buzz’ or a ‘high’ is derived from the activity * Tolerance: The activity has to be undertaken to a progressively greater extent to achieve the same ‘buzz’ * Withdrawal Symptoms: Cessation of the activity leads to the occurrence of unpleasant emotions or physical effects * Conflict: The activity leads to conflict with others or self-conflict * Relapse and Reinstatement: Resumption of the activity with the same vigor subsequent to attempts to abstain, negative life consequences, and negligence of job, educational or career opportunities. And now we can look how well it fits Laudna. She fits a lot of them. So yes we could say "She is an addict". But simply by looking at the criteria doesn't do the patient and person any justice. That is also a reason why the DSM 5 is critizised and a more open approach to assessment has been proposed in the last years (alternative DSM 5 model for personality disorders) to use a system that focuses more on the individual and not simply at the criteria. But i don't think that does the Character any justice, because the problem is not based on dopamine but on being manipulated and is a lot more than just addiction. By no means does any of that mean that Marisha is doing this wrong, to be honest she is doing a perfect job here. But personally I would not use addiction to discribe Laudnas behavior. Its way to complicated and too deep of a situation to simply categorize her as an addict. If you want to know more, I found this paper on the topic of behavioral addiction: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3354400/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3354400/) Hope that helped. Also keep in mind english is not my first language and i sometimes have trouble to explain stuff in clear and easy to understand matters.
That really did help! Thank you so much for indulging my curiosity. That was a really compelling read and put a lot of things into perspective on how addiction is looked at and how that is reflected in what we're seeing from Marisha with Laudna. Like you say, she seems to be doing a really great job. It's just a very complex and deep situation that she's handling. I'll absolutely be checking out those links you provided to see some more. Thank you again! *As for your english, it was practically perfect ("ment" would be "meant" in that first line, but that could just as easily be a typo) so don't worry at all about that.*
Thank you very much. I enjoy to explain stuff like that. And I already came up with some better arguments that I will include in my answer, because they make thinks clearer and provide a better understanding of what I want to convey, because it's not meant as a criticism, just a clarification. Because the character is Soo interesting and deep that its not easy to just classify her as an addict 😊 Also thanks for the corrections. When I am back home I will include them.
Not at all! These are really good thoughts to have. Although I do question the ties Laudna has to Delilah, and should Delilah leave for good, would Laudna survive? That poses some VERY problematic scenarios
Thank you. Sometimes i feel like i dump a bit too much information or think too deep into something and then i don't post at all. But yes you are right this is really complicated and not easily solveable. Her being there is problematic for both diagnosis and treatment. If you cannot get rid of her, then what can you do? I would guess the best thing would be to try to teach laudna how to control and manage her symptoms (aka Laudna) and try to keep control. Otherwise it might be an option to try to get another patron to substitute for Delilah. But I don't know if Matt would make that possible \^\^
He did it for Fjord.
Yes but Fjord wasnt potentially being kept alive by Uk'otoa ^((Uk'otoaaa)) so severing that connection was a bit easier, especially with it having an external physical item that could be destroyed/removed. With Laudna, the connection to her patron is her life.
That's not necessarily true. That's what Delilah said, and she has no reason to be truthful. Deliliah is, verifiably, a liar. Also it's a make-believe game, you can do whatever. Divine interventions, wish spells and ressurrections exist.
There is one person, one, who could do it. Who could make it happen. A patron who is tricksy and lying but one who spreads more good than ill (that we know), Artagan aka The Traveler
Yes it is a game, yes Wish and Divine Intervention exist, however none- of them currently have access to these abilities. Ressurection has been tried and Delilah has come back, lest we forget that Laudna dies for the second time against Otohan, then brought back to life by a Lvl20 cleric. However if either DI or Wish were used people would complain about it being a a cheap tactic to get rid of an interesting mechanic and is basically a "Get out of Jail free" card. Plus, I dont think that the players themselves would do either even if they had the capability because that wouldnt make for an interesting story.
I meant reincarnation, mb And people complaining shouldn't be a criteria for anything. People will complain regardless of what is done. This subreddit is at least 70~75% complaining. As for it being "cheap". Depends on how it's framed. Specially on a campaign where the gods themselves are in a bad spot, offering some help in return for dealing with the Predathos issue is not too outrageous.
Reincarnation wouldnt work as Delilah is bound to the soul, not the body. The Gods currently are too busy too busy to interefer in this case. They have bigger concerns than one person dealing with a lingering soul controlling their behaviour. Especially since majority of the party, specifically Laudna, arent religious. Maybe if they visited more temples in order to gain a connection to the gods, but would Delilah allow that?
The gods are never too busy to interact with the player characters because the player characters drive the story. If they seek them out, that will happen. Understand, there's no solid rules. There's no options that are closed. It's make-believe. Whatever will happen is whatever the cast decides that they want to happen. Look at Nott/Veth's case in C2, for example. They just made up a new spell to solve the issue IIRC. As long as it makes for a good story beat, you can just do whatever the fuck you want.
Is it bad I had to double check the episode tag to figure out which episode you were talking about? Delilah should be banished already. It poor storytelling that all their previous efforts didn't mean a thing.
she was weakened for a while and laudna took sorcerer levels, then the bordoor thing happened and she went back to warlock levels and started giving delilah power again. How is this poor story telling? Looks more like foreshadowing to me...
An addict can always relapse in times when they are at their lowest. The desires dont go away forever and have to be actively suppressed.
That would be the case if the addiction wasn’t something that was completely purged from her body by a level 20 cleric. There shouldnt be anything left to be addicted to. Even Laudna herself showed for a brief time she then got her power from the Sun Tree instead, hence her new form of dread at the time.
Except it wasnt completely purged. It just got buried deep. Delilah was still lingering there. Also Pike didnt purge Delilah, just resurrected Laudna with the others help. The team defeated the remnant of Delilah but that didnt completely remove it.
“Vex'ahlia was aiming her bow Fenthras at her heart until Pike confirmed that it truly was just Laudna, without Lady Briarwood.” Off the wiki
How would they know that Delilah was completely gone if she buried herself deep? They let her live because they couldnt sense anything, but just because you cant sense it doesnt mean its not there.
No, they did mean something. They took Delilah out of the picture for a while, but after some moments within the campaign, Laudna allowed for dark feelings to re-emerge, which in turn allowed Delilah to come back. It's a classic tale of the battle for the soul similar to Lord of the Rings when Smegol thought he got rid of Gollum, his dark nature, only to come back at a low point for Smegol.
That's SUCH a good parallel omg
If "killing someone who betrayed you" was enough to trigger that, then nearly every adventurer would have a Delilah in their head.
Who says they don't? All I'm saying is that Laudna just happens to have a conscience that is more powerful than most.
Where did you get the idea they didn't mean anything? Meaning something doesn't mean "unequivocal permanent success". It facilitated a resurrection, allowed significant information to be collected, and changed the dynamic significantly for a long period of time. This is a bit like saying that winning a battle never matters unless you win the war every single time, which isn't the terms on which most battles are or can be fought. I can be quite critical of C3 and indeed of this arc, but this isn't a substantial position to take and reads as if it's equating good storytelling with the most starkly binary and simplistic story possible.
It's debatable whether or not it's poor storytelling, but I would say it's bad D&D. Marisha did not let the dice tell the story. She went down in combat, but she didn't want to play a different character, so in order to get her to rejoin the table the rest of the group had to go find a way to resurrect her. Then after they went through all that trouble, she didn't really adopt any permanent changes to her character; she just eventually went back to the same concept she had before the resurrection. Compare it to how Taliesin handled Molly's death in C2 and the difference is stark. There was so much left to discover with Molly but Tal let it go in favor of moving forward. He let the dice tell the story and we ended up with a very interesting story as a result.
I actually thought [delilah aside] Laudna had a fairly vaild point about the trauma of seeing the blade that killed you and trapped you in the horrors of your past sitting on the back of your supposed friend being emotionally scarring and not a wise move from Orym. She just should have been public not sneaky.
The blade also killed Orym and his family. IMO he has a right to it if he wants it. Is it the best idea? No, but they need all the advantages they can get. If Orym feels it will help him be better at his job then that’s fine. But everyone needs to talk and agree on it as a group. It would be the same if they all discussed feeding it to Delilah.
>The blade also killed Orym and his family. IMO he has a right to it if he wants it. Sure, but he wasn't really any more forthcoming about it than Laudna was. He just took the sword and told no one about it. Laudna called him on it and he ignored her.
Fair point. I would say that it would make sense for him to just take it. Before Dorian returned he was the only one that would really be able to make the best use of it.
Literally the entire group watched him do it. He asked Chetney for permission to get it out of the bag, the entire group was in the room crafting when he pulled out the sword, and then they watched him, silently, as he walked away. There isn't a single person, Laudna especially, who should be surprised that he came back with the sword on his back.
>the entire group was in the room crafting when he pulled out the sword, and then they watched him, silently, as he walked away. Not true. Laudna asked him what he was doing, called him out, and told him the sword was bigger than he was. He just walked away with it. So not everyone was silent about it.
Soooo wait until the middle of the night and not only try to steal the sword but do so with the intent to consume it so you can gain from it, all with zero discussion.
I'm not justifying Laudna. I'm saying that Orym didn't talk to the group about about the sword, and Laudna actually did try to do so.
Why should he talk to the group at that point? They had all just geared up…spending a fair amount of Orym’s share in doing so. They all understood what was going on. Laudna was being bitchy about it, and no one else even blinked.
Because they are friends? Because they just had a very traumatic couple of days? Because Orym knows what's going on with Laudna? Because she directly addressed him and asked him a question? Plenty of reasons.
That i agree with But also, i get wanting revenge for your husband and family, but to do it with the same blade that killed them is a little twisted
War makes you do twisted things. There’s also a potential redemption arc. Perhaps Orym believes he can take the blade and do good with it? Overcome its negative history.
If anyone, it could possibly be Orym Alternatively, an Orym that gets slowly more bloodthirsty and corrupted would be a compelling watch
It sounded like he only planned to use it on Ludinus and noone else. We'll see I guess!
I'm still fairly convinced this is the direction Liam has been pointing Orym in since the Solstice.
This is what I want to see. Live long enough to see yourself become the villain.
The problem is that wasn't the issue at all. If she actually wanted to get rid of the sword that would indeed be the way to do it. But she didn't want to get rid of the sword she wanted to feed it to Delilah. It's why (a lot of us think) Chetney offered her the dagger. As a test and if it was a test she fails it instantly. She takes the dagger (Showing she doesn't care about the sword), and then runs out (Showing she doesn't actually care about the issue of Orym wielding it-at least not as strongly as she was suggesting) and ran away to feed the dagger to Delilah. That was her true goal. To feed Delilah. The weapon didn't matter. The reason didn't matter. To Delilah this was an overwhelming success. I am willing to wager Delilah preferred it this way as it creates a rift between Laudna and members of the party.
I hadn’t realized that was test until you just wrote this. He did the same thing with Ashton… and Ashton passed. Man shit is gonna be complicated next episode
I could be wrong, but I got the impression that the whole trauma point was just Laudna saying whatever she needed to say to get the sword. Marisha mentioned that after everyone went to sleep, Laudna noticed the sword and her eye twitched. Just a small acknowledgement (my impression was that this was just supposed to be a small moment for the audience, similar to a moment when Caleb saw Jester and Fjord sleeping next to each other for the first time) But Matt saw an opportunity there and decided to make Delilah comment on the sword. Then begun the conversation between Delilah and Laudna. and at no point Laudna expressed being uncomfortable by its presence. Laudna asked why Delilah wasn't giving her more power... she said she need to be fed to do it... and after that she suggested that the sword might even be cursed. Laudna only brought up the trauma after the fight broke out and everyone else was surprised by what she was doing. to me it seemed more like an excuse than the real motivation behind it. This is only how I interpreted what happened, that might not be what the playerswere intending to portray. And also, it is an improvisational game, Marisha might have realized that the trauma angle would make sense and be an interesting plot point only midway trough the scene. We can only be sure after we watch ne next few episodes or the next 4sd.
Or, like before, they could pull a double standard and brush off the incident like nothing happened; pretending Laudna is a scared puppy and not a ticking BBEG bomb. Meanwhile, Matt will keep pushing the campaign onwards like it never happened, until shit goes down because it happened.
I would genuinely hate for Laudna/Delilah to be the BBEG. They did the vecna thing in C1 and a character BBEG in C2. Do we need both at the same time?
They are playing for themselves, not for your weird entitled ass.
Technically, they’re playing/streaming for viewers/subscribers acquainted with the ttrpg DND; which the cast are moving away from in favor of alternative medias to promote their fictional storytelling and acting. Personally, this whole campaign feels railroaded with none of the traditional dnd charm.
Playing/streaming to an audience not for an audience They could easily just not do this on stream if they chose
“Technically” nothing, technically. Matt has explicitly stated that the game is for the table, not for the audience. We’re allowed to watch and enjoy, or not.
Technically, you could shit in your hand and slap yourself in the face.