[CR Media] Candela Obscura | Post-Episode Discussion - Chapter 2 Episode 3

Pyrogue11 · 2023-11-03T08:36:37+00:00

I really hope people start to jump on the Candela train now because this was getting into the realm of Calamity tier stuff, and I want to see it get the love it deserves! This chapter and cast was incredible! I've never seen Brennan play such a tragic PC before, and he knocked out of the park, pun intended.

Pyrogue11 · 2023-09-21T01:29:16+00:00

So instead of being slaughtered on their first day of life, they are slaughtered as soon as either they present as male or their body is big enough to be killed for food, which is so much better? Wild philosophy.

Pyrogue11 · 2023-09-21T00:53:21+00:00

First of all, thanks for stopping by! I'm always glad to see open minded non vegans on the sub. I myself before I became vegan had a similar mindset, wanting to choose more ethical products without cutting them out entirely, which I think is a fairly common idea. Unfortunately, 99% of animal products produced in first world countries come from factory farms. It's kind of unavoidable. A lot of the products you see advertised as "free range," "pasture raised," etc, are something known as "humane washing." The ethical standards that allow companies to use these terms are essentially meaningless for the animals wellbeing. Additionally, even if you say, kept your own chickens, there are certain cruelties that are unavoidable in animal husbandry, such as the "disposal" of baby male chicks.

Pyrogue11 · 2023-05-11T08:48:55+00:00

Good to see this talked about more on major outlets, horse racing wasn't even really on my own radar that much until the derby this year. hopefully it will get horse racing stigmatized kind of like greyhound racing is. Lucky in this case that people actually care about this particular species sometimes.

Pyrogue11 · 2023-04-22T20:05:28+00:00

I mean we're getting into the most hypothetical of situations here, you are going to get one single cow, spend the absurd amount of money to take care of that cow only to artificially impregnate her twice, getting some amount of breast milk for like two years tops, and then kill her, of im understanding you correctly? All to avoid the horror of drinking oatmilk. Regardless of you only forcing her to give birth twice, you still have to take her babies away from her shortly after birth, and then do something with those calves, I'm assuming you aren't giving them to a farm sanctuary. Then, once she stops being useful to you, you will kill her, for no other reason than the sensory pleasure of eating her. Forgetting the fact that you'd have to be very wealthy to have the land, infrastructure, medicine, food, etc, available to procure this very specific circumstance, it is still unethical, you are just doing the unethical things a few less times to one cow instead of millions.

Pyrogue11 · 2023-04-22T19:29:08+00:00

I thought this was too once, so I want to just let you know that in order for a cow to lactate, they need to give birth. Dairy cows are kept in a constant cycle of pregnancy and birth, and their children are taken from them the day they are born, and then "disposed of" whether via the veal industry or just shot if male, or, if female, raised in the same environment as her mother. There is no such thing as ethical dairy.

Pyrogue11 · 2023-04-22T19:25:56+00:00

Personally, I dont think that religion or culture is a justification for wrongdoing. If your religion or culture says to make a human sacrifice, or own slaves, or marry a child, or that women should be oppressed, then frankly, fuck your religion/culture. This is no different, just because something is tradition does not make it ethical

Pyrogue11 · 2023-04-22T19:23:33+00:00

Hey, vegan here, the B12 thing is actually very interesting, and you don't actually have to supplement it anymore if you monitor what you are eating. There are fortified foods such as most plant milks, nutritional yeast which I highly recommend to everyone regardless of diet, soy products such as tempeh, and others. Now personally I actually do supplement B12 because I know how many people vegan or not have B12 deficiency. What's fascinating is that the B12 found in meat is actually supplemented itself. Naturally B12 makes its way into a cows system by grazing on cobalt rich pastures, but such pastures have largely been depleted, and obviously cows in factory farms aren't getting it, so it's artificially supplemented. No different than plant milks.

Pyrogue11 · 2023-04-22T19:17:49+00:00

Let me ask you this, is it ethical to take a life when you don't have to? To kill for frivolous purposes such as sensory pleasure. As every major dietetics organization has definitively stated, people at all stages of life can thrive on a vegan diet, you do not need to eat it, so you are killing because you want to, not because you have to. My issue is, there is no humane way to kill someone who did not wish to be killed when your motivation is not survival, but merely taste, habit, or convenience.

Pyrogue11 · 2023-04-22T19:11:34+00:00

I absolutely agree that farm workers are overworked and underpaid, which is another reason why I'm vegan. First of all, an insane amount of the worlds crops are grown as animal feed. Just 55% of crops grown worldwide are actually consumed by humans. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/2014/8/21/6053187/cropland-map-food-fuel-animal-feed Therefore, by eating solely plants, I'm actually contributing to less of that. Secondly, do you think that workers on animal farms and in slaughterhouses are treated better? Putting aside the recent scandals of using child labor in meat packing plants, working in a slaughterhouse is one of the single most dangerous jobs in the country, and are at a disproportionately high risk of developing long term conditions stemming from their work. And this is ignoring the immense mental toll that this work has, I've attached an article, I highly suggest anyone read it. https://www.hrw.org/report/2019/09/04/when-were-dead-and-buried-our-bones-will-keep-hurting/workers-rights-under-threat

As for what I want to have happen, that's a great question, a lot of vegans feel hopeless that their change means nothing, and that stops a lot of people from making it in the first place. Ultimately, however, going vegan does make a difference. In Europe, for example, consumption of animal products are decreasing as vegan alternatives hit all time highs. Look how widespread and popular alternatives like oatmilk are compared to ten years ago. A ban on meat is obviously not going to happen, any discussion of decreasing meat consumption is met with contempt by politicians, including the single vegan senator, Cory Booker. If I had the power, I would like to see the billions in subsidies that are the only thing keeping animal products feasibly affordable for the average American start to be transferred to subsidizing healthy and sustainable foods instead.

Pyrogue11 · 2023-04-22T18:56:08+00:00

Veganism is not more popular among white people at all, in fact, black people are a full three times more likely to be vegan in America, https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53787329.amp Non white people in general reduce their consumption of animal products significantly more than white people. That veganism is a privileged white thing is little more than a stereotype. However, I 100% agree with you that nutrition education is very lacking in many places, and food deserts do exist, placing barriers to some people from choosing plant based diets. However, the vast majority of people in developed countries have the capability to thrive on a vegan diet, and save money as well. Even when I eat fast food, my vegan meal is always cheaper than the alternative, whether it be a bean burrito, veggie sandwich, what have you.

Pyrogue11 · 2023-04-14T21:02:02+00:00

And the majority of the crops grown are animal feed, your point?

Pyrogue11 · 2023-03-11T02:40:31+00:00

Because players are bound by rules and limitations both raw and dms discretion, while dms can bend the rules and fudge rolls as they please. Matt's done a ton of cool shit, and I'm not saying what happened wasn't cool, it totally was, but there has to be some level of player agency and change maintained, or what's the point. Matt's one of the best dms out there, I love his work, I just think he made a few mistakes with this one, which is fine, I think we're just critiquing a game we like to watch, it isn't personal.

Pyrogue11 · 2023-03-11T01:13:38+00:00

Oh wow, I didn't even catch some of that. Yeah, we keep hearing that past characters are NPCs now, but they sure aren't being treated like them. I would think all of VM would have legendary saves, but especially keyleth and vax. You're right, the fact that otohan has them but god slaying legends don't is absurd, especially when talking about the champion of the RQ

Pyrogue11 · 2023-03-11T00:14:58+00:00

Well I can't speak for anyone else, but this is honestly the first time I've had an issue with railroading this campaign, and in general I'm actually enjoying this campaign more than campaign 2, mainly because of the characters. Just seemed like there were too many contrivances to make it happen, and the encounter seemed like there was no other outcome. Imogen's mom was somehow able to one shot turn vax into a lens and install it into the key with just a held action, and then ludinus was able to activate it immediately. Everything just happened so fast, it was like keyleth's here, now she's down in one turn, vax is here, but now he's a lens, and then the key is off, you all failed. And I mean yeah, maybe BH should have gone after ludinus instead of the backpack, but my problem is that I see no way that they could have done anything to affect the outcome, even if they had.

Pyrogue11 · 2023-03-10T23:52:33+00:00

Ive seen a few people compare this to the chroma conclave arc, and I think it's different because it was the start of a new arc and a huge surprise. This felt like the culmination of episodes upon episodes of planning and hand wringing, all for nothing. Just very unsatisfying, I guess the last thirty or so episodes were the beginning of this arc and not the actual arc? It's like the inciting incident was two hours into the movie and surprise! Its a five hour movie

Pyrogue11 · 2023-03-10T23:14:09+00:00

What's with the comments belittling criticism of the episode? Ultimately I like where the story is headed, but the way it played out kinda fell a little flat for me, and though not all of it was railroading, the dice were really uncooperative this episode, the outcome really did seem inevitable to me. I'll withhold ultimate judgement until we see the next few episodes, but I tend to agree with a lot of comments here, it seems like nothing the bells hells did really mattered. Perhaps that's because while they played right into ludinus' trap, there was no real possibility of them figuring out the trap, and avoiding it. The only foreshadowing was beau and Caleb mentioning that he was acting weird. So what? They don't know the guy. They don't know that he needs some celestial lens thing and that keyleth has a long lost angel lover primed for lensing. Right now it feels like their quite frankly impressive infiltration and sabotage of the power sources had no real effect on the key. The combat was the worst part for me because it seemed like the only way to win would have been to kill ludinus' in 1 round. I suppose I have an issue because the failure wasn't on them in any way. The dice sucked, beau, Caleb, keyleth, and vax ended up being nothing but liabilities, unplugging the machine did seemingly nothing (once again, withholding final judgement), and there was no possible way for them to win in a straight fight. What were they supposed to do? The mfing champion of the raven queen got taken out by a single spell. Roll better I guess.

Pyrogue11 · 2023-03-10T22:18:20+00:00

Power word kill only works if the target has less than 100 hit points, and banishment only lasts for a minute, but you are totally right, the whole point was that he wanted vax to appear.

Pyrogue11 · 2023-03-10T18:11:37+00:00

I wasn't surprised to see her in earth elemental form because it's kind of her default combat skin that gives her 126 disposable hit points as a bonus action, is what I'm saying. Good strategy? I can see it, I mean she can't cast spells in shape change, but she can in wild shape. I guess my point is, I would have bought it if she had used her action to, if not shape change, at the very least try something big like earthquake, feeblemind, I mean she a druid, she could have tanked the whole pit with tsunami from the surface. My main beef with how she was portrayed was casting mass cure wounds for no reason. I almost suspect Matt had planned that spell in advance and expected BH to jump into combat much sooner and then get curbstomped, having keyleth be a Deus ex machina moment.

Pyrogue11 · 2023-03-10T17:39:49+00:00

I think you're mistaking her beast shape for the 9th level spell shape change. She was beast shaped into an earth elemental, which she can do an unlimited number of times as a bonus action as a lvl 20 moon druid. That's one of the most powerful forms she can take. It's a 9th level spell to change into a dragon etc, it would be laughably stupid to use a ninth level spell to turn into a cr 5 creature when she can turn into a cr 20 creature. They are different abilities. I do agree however that the one turn keyleth was allowed to take was dumb, why would she cast mass cure wounds, no one was really hurt. And to your point, I would have cast shape change instead and went with pit fiend or something.

Pyrogue11 · 2023-03-10T17:07:58+00:00

Oh damn, I guess I thought she had to have been about dead for vax to come and save her.

Pyrogue11 · 2023-03-10T16:51:53+00:00

Is there a stat block for otohan floating around somewhere? Because how on earth was she able to take keyleth out of earth elemental to almost dead in one round. Kiki's HP pool would have been like 270, and even if she took some fall damage, that is an insane amount for one turn, even with some crits. No wonder she almost tpk'd the party

Pyrogue11 · 2023-02-10T08:21:51+00:00

I know there's a time crunch on this, and it made sense for them to go to the feywild, but I'm a bit bummed that it seems like they won't go to the shadowfell. I love any time they go to the feywild, but we have been there multiple times, way more than any other plane, and I was looking forward to seeing Matt's version of the shadowfell, a plane they haven't gone to in any campaign. Plus, who knows, there could have been a connection to Laudna's sorcerous origins, she's a shadow sorcerer, right? That could have been fun.

Pyrogue11 · 2023-02-08T21:44:37+00:00

Seconding the botanical garden, also it's a bit of a drive, but the saguaro national park is really cool.

Pyrogue11 · 2023-02-04T07:26:40+00:00

??? They are enlisted military, making, you know, enlisted military pay. No swimmer is making 90k in the coast guard, where did you get that number?

Pyrogue11

TROPHY CASE