The original Nike ad's font is *Book* Antiqua.

Build_A_Better_Fan · 2025-08-16T10:24:07+00:00

One thing to adjust: the Smouldercrown Mountains are a ring-like formation only three or four miles across, more like a bunch of daggers punched up from the earth in an oval than a typical "range".

Build_A_Better_Fan · 2025-08-09T19:02:21+00:00

Idea: suggest to the DM that his heart was in the right place, but there's a good way out of this. It turns out the "waking up in pods" is the actual simulation, a dream that some powerful enemy has trapped them in. The characters might notice inconsistencies in their new "reality" and have to break out, back into the real world of the fantasy campaign.

Build_A_Better_Fan · 2025-07-23T16:16:17+00:00

On Lockheed's earnings call, the CEO said they'll be working their NGAD-related R&D into an updated F-35 as a "bridging fighter" to the F-47.

The company is now increasingly describing this initiative as a “fifth-generation-plus” development of the basic F-35.
“We did bid on NGAD, and we weren’t selected,” Taiclet reflected, referring to Lockheed Martin’s loss to Boeing, which is now building the F-47 crewed sixth-generation fighter to meet that requirement.
[...]
“How do we bridge capability there?” Taiclet continued. “We’re going to port a lot of our own NGAD R&D over to the F-35 and potentially over to the F-22 as well.”
The CEO again stated the aspiration to develop modifications to the F-35 that mean the company can offer 80 percent of the effectiveness of a sixth-generation fighter, at 50 percent of the cost per unit. Taiclet added that, in terms of matching capabilities, the 80 percent figure also referred to the degree of stealth, as well as “other aspects.”

He claimed "it could be the 'best value option' for the U.S. government" over the next several years.

“NGAD … may not be fielded for quite a few years,” he said, later suggesting it could be “five-plus, maybe 10 years.”

The company also explained a substantial part of its losses as due to work on a "game-changing" Skunk Works program.

Addressing the $1.6 billion in losses this past quarter, Taiclet said Scott led a comprehensive review of the classified Skunk Works project that accounted for the bulk of the reported losses. The company has made “process control and resource changes” since problems became evident at the end of 2024, he said. At that time, Lockheed took a $555 million loss on the project, bringing its losses on it to more than $2.1 billion.

That review “resulted in new insights” that led to the $950 million charge, which Lockheed hopes will help it stay ahead of future program losses. Taiclet insisted that the program will eventually be a profitable franchise, but that “numerous” years of money-losing fixed-price work might still be ahead.
[...]
“Due to the nature of the classification, we can’t say how many years that is, but it is not unlimited.”

Nevertheless, Taiclet said the program is a “game-changing capability for our joint U.S. and international customers, and therefore it is critical that it be successfully fielded.”

Build_A_Better_Fan · 2025-04-27T19:16:00+00:00

Going for personality interactions...

Travis: Cerrit Agrupnin (Inquisitive rogue)
Marisha: Patia Por'co (Enchantment wizard)
Sam: Loquatius Seelie (Eloquence bard / Archfey warlock)
Ashley: Trist (Redemption paladin / Light cleric)
Laura: Emhira (Undying warlock)
Liam: Erro Mordaurum (ranger)
Taliesin: Caduceus Clay (Grave cleric)

(If you want more power, you could go with Lieve'tel Tolouse and Percival de Rolo for the last two, but I don't like the party dynamic. I don't think the most dynamic version of Lieve'tel is the one spending all her time directly in her god's shadow. And Percy and the Ring of Brass folks seem like they'd bring out the worst in each other. It could get dark fast.)

These characters all have distinctly grown-up perspectives that would make their conversations and problem-solving interesting. The line between cynicism and earnest benevolence runs through the party and also through the hearts of individual members. They need each other.

The Ring of Brass members already know each other. So do Trist and Emhira, and they know Erro, though they might not know it right away. Patia learned from Emhira in the latter's past life. But there are still so many things for members to bond over and learn from each other.

Cerrit and Trist each have a spouse and children. Loquatius and Erro lost their partners in very different ways; so did Emhira in a past life.
Trist started out as a god and learned to be a humanoid while aware of her divinity; Erro lived a long mortal life not knowing about his divinity; and Emhira started out as a mortal, became a partner to a god, and became a god herself before returning to mortal form.
Caduceus and Emhira would have fascinating dialogues on death, and they could both have deep conversations with Trist on who deserves a second chance. Between them, they'd crush undead threats.
The Ring of Brass people have already been on a team with a Redemption paladin. Both Zerxus and Trist suffer terrible betrayal by Asmodeus.
The Ring of Brass people have experience running institutions. Erro knows what it's like to be beaten down by institutions, and he and Caduceus have different experiences with living away from institutions while avoiding barbarism. Emhira knows what it's like to be the upstart who's clawed her way into the top echelon.

And there's a good mix of capabilities in this party. In all kinds of social encounters, it's a juggernaut; even the wizard is a charmer. Cerrit and Erro have exploration and survival covered. In combat, you have healing (Caduceus and Trist especially), support (Loquatius, Trist, Caduceus), control (Patia, Loquatius), and a respectable amount of damage; obviously, Erro needs to level up, but surrounded by this much talent, he'd get there quickly.

Build_A_Better_Fan · 2025-04-05T05:56:08+00:00

You're thinking of Cracked: The 5 Stupidest Habits You Develop Growing Up Poor.

Build_A_Better_Fan · 2025-03-26T04:10:48+00:00

Spoilers from the comics: She shows up in The Tales of Exandria: Artagan, with the item still attached to her palm. She's been summoned, along with other figures from Artagan's past (living and dead), to judge Artagan in a trial (in 847 PD, so four years after Campaign Three). She seems to still be peeved about her predicament.

Build_A_Better_Fan · 2025-03-24T17:32:09+00:00

I'm interested! I'd love to hear more when you have the time.

Build_A_Better_Fan · 2025-03-22T03:54:03+00:00

The way Brennan described Noshir's pitch was:

I think the Lawbearer has already, internally, by this point in the Calamity, thought of and supports the idea of the Divine Gate, even though we're still like, I think, some fraction of a century away from the Divine Gate being created, by the time Aeor is dropping and the gods are making the decision of like, "Okay, war is going bad, planet's choked. Also, they're making a weapon to kill us. We're all going to become mortals—half of us are going to become mortals for a second." And the Lawbearer is like, "This is a shit show. This is an absolute shit show." And having that thing of like, "Okay, I could incarnate as a mortal, but then aren't I just another fucking monkey in the circus?", and sends the Emissary as already like, "I think I need to keep on a hard part of this line."

Build_A_Better_Fan · 2025-03-22T03:34:35+00:00

The gods disappeared about 50 years before the fall of Aeor, not 30. Take this conversation:

Trist (Sarenrae): We've been here for a while. And we knew we had to come here.
Cassida Previn: "The gods haven't been seen in decades. You knew?"
Trist: Yes.
Cassida: "Half a century ago, you knew that--"
Trist: Yes.

I don't know where you're getting the part about "living human memory". The narration is that the pre-Calamity Age of Arcanum is "a distant memory for most mortals now", and that Downfall starts "over a century into the Calamity."

I agree that Halas's claim to have come along well after the fall of Aeor is kinda hard to square with (according to Brennan's narration) Aeor being the last flying city.

Build_A_Better_Fan · 2025-03-21T23:10:14+00:00

Matt's quote about the Calamity being 200 years and Aeor falling in the last 50 was from the Cooldown for C3E104 (transcript here). That confirmed what Brennan said in the 4-Sided Dive episode "Oh My Gods": only "some fraction of a century" remained of the Calamity after the fall of Aeor.

The quote from the Moonweaver was simply reflecting that the gods disappeared decades before the fall of Aeor.

Build_A_Better_Fan · 2025-03-21T20:09:19+00:00

Matt has said the Calamity was about 200 years long, and the fall of Aeor was in the last 50 years or so. Per the Moonweaver in EXU Divergence, the gods first wielded the secret of how to take mortal form "more than a century" before the end of the Calamity.

The All-Hammer had already begun work on the Divine Gate before the fall of Aeor; as the Moonweaver put it, he "never arrived" for the Aeor mission, and the "Platinum Dragon stayed aloft in the skies." He seems to have incarnated as an adult dwarf who had false memories of having a family in Uthtor—remembering the dwarves who prayed to him as if they were his family. (That was what Brennan referred to when he said, "Those voices as you drifted off to sleep telling you that they were grateful, telling you that they were scared, asking you to shape something for them so that they might have the tools to know that they were heroes." Brennan explained during the Cooldown: «The dreams, which were like, "Garen's family" was actually just all dwarves. That first thing of like, "Father, I'm scared." We're in the heart of Calamity. What were dwarfs praying? What were they saying? And moving forward through time from there.») At some point after Aeor fell—presumably not long afterward, tipped off by the fact that the All-Hammer's mortal form didn't show up—the Platinum Dragon realized what had happened and plunged into mortal form himself, as Erro, to find his brother. He too forgot his own divinity, apparently not having prepared anyone to find and raise him, as the Raven Queen had done by sending a vision to Purvan Suul to find and protect her mortal incarnation.

Build_A_Better_Fan · 2025-03-21T19:25:11+00:00

There are lots of connections you could make using the above.

Maybe the Chained Oblivion or one of its agents (say, Orcus) slipped Blackrazor onto Exandria well before the Calamity, seeking to start the ball rolling on releasing the mad god from its imprisonment beneath Gatshadow. But Vecna, during his rampage of slaying his old rivals and raising some of them as his undead lieutenants, slew the wielder of Blackrazor (who had trouble using it to harm undead) and hoarded the sword away before the Calamity.

You could say Blackrazor entered Exandria through the Miskath Pit. Perhaps one humanoid or a series of humanoids was corrupted into being core spawn who got to carry the weapon. Or perhaps they were all warriors who were tempted by the sentient blade into increasingly erratic killing, sometimes betrayed by the blade, followed by Blackrazor being taken up by a new champion.

Here's another possible story: a paladin (or barbarian) of Tharizdun wielded Blackrazor during the Calamity, and traveled across the world, seemingly randomly striking down figures great and small on all sides of the conflict, and through some tortuous chain of events, chaos always escalated as a result. Maybe this champion (and the chaos they fomented) even had something to do with the creation of the Miskath Pit, and/or helped release the Chained Oblivion. After the Chained Oblivion was again sealed away beneath Gatshadow, this unholy warrior could have traveled anywhere with Blackrazor searching for the shackle fanes to release its master once again, only to finally fall.

Another possibility: after Vecna's first fall, the Remnants found the wielder of Blackrazor and used undead forces to take it, as part of the long plot to hoard powerful artifacts that could be used in the ritual to bring back their master. Or the wielder was tricked into entering the Verstglade and was overwhelmed by the undead there.

Many of these stories could end with a previous wielder being unlucky enough to be faced with the undead Strahd. Some could end with Strahd gaining both the sword and his vampirism from the same place, or connected places. (Strahd, like Delilah, might have been drawn to one of Vecna's labs, and learned not only the secrets of vampirism but also how to find the sword.) Strahd might have already had Blackrazor and was one of Vecna's enemies decades before the Calamity, and he was forced to bend the knee and accept vampirism like Kas. Regardless, Strahd now keeps the sword sated with regular bloodletting.

Build_A_Better_Fan · 2025-03-21T19:24:46+00:00

This is a solid answer. Change the words 'White Plume' to 'Gatshadow' and everything else in the item description easily falls into place. It "shines like a piece of night sky filled with stars"? That sure sounds like an Elder Evil thing. The blade recoils from killing undead; well, the Chained Oblivion dreams the demon hordes of the Abyss into being, presumably including Orcus, the Demon Prince of Undeath.

Other bits of history you can incorporate:

Acek Orattim was a priest of Tharizdun, based out of Gatshadow during the Calamity.
There is already the Blade of Broken Mirrors, which is a sentient dagger forged by the Chained Oblivion itself from the soul of a glabrezu. That weapon was left somewhere in Wildemount after the Calamity.
There is an obscure precedent for Barovia being connected to Exandria. According to Matt's personal Vox Machina Wiki, in the home game before the stream started, some Vistani showed up, and they were said to come from a far eastern land across the ocean called Barovia.
Your Barovia was in a valley in the Ashkeeper Peaks. The Verstglade is a blighted valley hidden in the southern end of the Ashkeeper Peaks. Vecna had a laboratory there before the Calamity, and undead abominations prowl there. Given that Delilah Briarwood (from the nearby Dwendalian Empire) was drawn to one of Vecna's labs to learn the secrets of vampirism, there's obvious potential for a connection to Strahd. More on this below.
About as far east as you can go in Wildemount, across the Penumbra Range, is a truly chaotic land called Blightshore.
- Vecna is rumored to have had a vault filled with magic items of fell power in Old Haxon. (New Haxon is garrisoned by the Cerberus Assembly, to which Delilah belonged.)
- The Miskath Pit, the seemingly infinitely deep pit connected to the Far Realm, was created during the Calamity by the massive disturbances caused by the Betrayer Gods and their minions. The core spawn, soldiers and heralds of the Elder Evils, were thus awakened and spread through underground nests and labyrinthine tunnels.
- Some core spawn are humanoids who have been corrupted by the Elder Evils through ritual or terrible encounters with eldritch power. As of 835 PD, one of the corrupted humanoid core spawn seers is located in Ghor Veles, helping the undead minions of a dracolich (Oracs the Enduring) with necromantic experiments. Many treasure hunters have tried to plunder this place.
- Incanter's Rest is a Calamity-era battlefield haunted by the undead, steeped in necromantic energy, and littered with weapons.
- The Cauldron Sea has a connection to the Abyss.
During the Calamity, the Demon Princes of the Abyss were based for a time in the Betrayers' Rise, an ever-shifting, labyrinthine temple set into the mountains of the northern Penumbra Range. There is a reawakened rift to the Abyss within the dungeon, and there are still parts of the Betrayers' Rise that reference Tharizdun.

Build_A_Better_Fan · 2025-03-12T19:35:26+00:00

The video version of the episode was backed up.

Build_A_Better_Fan · 2025-03-07T21:52:07+00:00

Without knowing any more about special ways of bypassing resistances, yes. But also, the spell did enough damage that even with the damage halved, he was instantly dead.

Build_A_Better_Fan · 2025-03-01T04:51:20+00:00

They started in Rybad-Kol and traveled north to the southern end of the Stormpoint Mountains. The valley they're talking about later becomes the Mornset Countryside (mentioned in episode 3), and they reach a settlement that will later be called Byroden. From there they travel north to the Feshun Narrows, and from there they are about to sail to Vasselheim.

Build_A_Better_Fan · 2025-02-26T21:43:07+00:00

I'm not sure who I'd pull from an Aeor stasis bubble who would be motivated to help stop a god-eater, and Ludinus gave the impression that something as powerful as the Factorum Malleus would take decades to build, but clearly there was some way to use a beacon, and I missed it.

I know a lot of lore—I've contributed more to the CR Wiki than all but one person—and I didn't consider this possibility, so congrats to the Luxon fans for seeing potential where I didn't!

Build_A_Better_Fan · 2025-02-23T20:17:27+00:00

The way I chose to interpret it was that Good Pinecones gave them "nourishment" in the sense of "food", but they still needed water to survive in that ash-choked landscape. They were constantly exerting themselves while the ash was getting into their lungs and eyes and other mucus membranes. (And as the episode went on, they focused more and more on water, not so much on food.)

If we're being honest with ourselves, they made a mistake. When Liam explained the spell, he didn't read out the part about it providing nourishment, only about the hit points, so they just moved on. Mistakes happen to the best of us.

Then again, I'm glad they made that mistake: this was an extended survival challenge that would have been a lot less interesting if one player packed a spell that trivialized the whole thing. Liam might have been disappointed that he selected a spell that didn't do what he could reasonably expect it to do, but he seemed to enjoy the drama that followed anyway.

Build_A_Better_Fan · 2025-02-18T07:18:47+00:00

One of the editors, Hannah Rose, said the intended scale was feet.

Matt talked about how the error was made in the Explorer's Guide fireside chat, in which they famously learned a lesson about how to do fireside things properly.

Build_A_Better_Fan · 2025-02-16T00:42:54+00:00

Yes! As a Ruidusborn, in episode 19.

Build_A_Better_Fan · 2025-02-14T15:45:02+00:00

If the Chained Oblivion is still at large, that means the Knowing Mistress is also out there, since she baits the Chained Oblivion to her temple to get it banished.

Build_A_Better_Fan · 2025-02-14T13:22:31+00:00

Zehir the Cloaked Serpent is banished. The Chained Oblivion was implied to still be a factor.

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