I adore how every member of Bell’s Hells can be described as monstrous in appearance, they truly are hellish.

Laudna and her form of dread. A tall, spindly, and unnaturally flexible and twisted body, adorned with either a mantle of branches, or a mourning veil dependent on how much she lets the dark necromancer inside of her take control.

Chetney and his grisly transformations. Losing control in both the bright, and red moons alike, skin ripping replaced by fur, and strangely stretched bones twisting until they form something far more animal than human.

Imogen and her scars. Although ever present, the unnatural light brightest when she casts magic, and her loss of control results in mass destruction. A rising figure barely contained by flesh, ripping reality, with eyes and scars aglow. Red and purple.

Fearne and her fey monstrosity. When she’s in the fey wilde, her pupils stretch themselves into goat-like rectangles, and she gets ever-so furrier, hair longer, and scragglier, sharper edges than before. And in case you ever forget about her form there, she has a claw like hand to curl around your throat to remind you while you're encased in her flame.

Ashton and his head. A hole in a person’s head allowing you to see through their skull, and skin decorated with gold, showing you the lines where their body fell apart. When they prepare to attack, through the glass shines various lights indicating precisely how they will decimate you. What’s worse, they were soft once. Can you imagine the slow spread of stone over flesh? Inhuman.

FCG and their eyes. When a switch is flipped, his eyes go from a nice, pleasant blue, to a murderous red. An amicable personality turned sour. The scariest part? It’s a design feature; not bug.

Throughout this post, you were likely wondering about Orym, who’s kinda just a guy. A halfling man with a history of loss, attempting to do good.

But we’ve all heard the poem, haven’t we?

“Demons run when a good man goes to war. Night will fall and drown the sun, when a good man goes to war. Friendship dies and true love lies, night will fall and the dark will rise, when a good man goes to war.“

so episode 31, really the last three or four episodes, honestly, crystalized a lot of what i have been working on behind the scenes when it comes to the hells so let’s talk. warning: as always, this a long post.

because the thing is, the thing is, bells’ hells have been a control party almost from the word go. control parties, for those who don’t know, build themselves to go around obstacles and find new, different win conditions for encounters. control parties have a million different ways to handle these objectives. they can avoid combat altogether via stealth, charisma checks, or other pointed party actions. they can, as the crownkeepers did with the crocodile, find a creative way to neutralize an encounter. this doesn’t just apply to combat, by the by. social encounters provide ample opportunity for a control party to flex their muscles and steer their targets towards the party’s objectives. the haunting of the moon tower is a perfect example. they tend to be more creative and aware of their environments and the people within them than their glass cannon and cockroach counterparts. they have to be. you can’t redefine victory conditions without that awareness or creativity. control parties are just willing to try new things in ways that other parties can’t (glass cannons tend to be built for just damage) or won’t (cockroaches prefer optimizing the action economy).

the hells are several different control modes smushed together into some semblance of a balanced party that can switch on a dime and adapt. they can playfully booby-trap their way through a museum job then roast their opponents alive before flipping back to friendly assistance once the threat has been neutralized and they’ve won. the hells are much more interested in gathering and using information than their c1 or c2 counterparts; they’re also much better at extracting it. whether it’s fearne and orym scouting out enemy bases or numbers, fcg and imogen running roughshod over other people’s minds to find it or being irresistible enough that information is just handed to them, or chet, laudna, and ashton scaring the information out of opponents, all of them have some way of pulling information together (using it is still a skill the group is working on but they’re getting better). in combat, laudna and imogen easily cycle between environmental control/support (think imogen’s hunger of hadar reskin and laudna’s form of dread) and big damage numbers, chet literally has two modes he can fight in, while ashton and orym have a number of ways to control enemy movement and attacks.

and the thing about last episode and this most recent string is how the cast has built characterization into and from the mechanics and abilities. the hells are a control party, and they all have control issues. every last one of them.

ashton - traumatic brain injury that left them their unreliable at best memory, sometimes unable to rein in their impulses, and a rage they’ve only recently learned to channel and use, a man who wants very clearly defined roles and relationships (and oh boy it says something that ashton is the one who best knows their limitations and has gotten used to living with this lack of control).

chetney - werewolf who has lost control of the beast once that we know of. has issues with authority and people having control over his creations and livelihood.

fcg - has been denied autonomy and personhood for much of their existence, can snap to murderbot mode when sufficiently stressed with no memory of what occurred.

fearne - oh fearne, she has issues with cages and how things need to be free but also how she collects the things and people she cares about (she’d never keep them but at the same time...). after all, if she collects them, well, she can’t be left again, right.

imogen - has to maintain a stubborn, rigid control over her feelings, thoughts, and powers at all times or else something could explode. literally, in some cases. or worse, she’ll be subjected to every passing, awful thought of every person around her and who wants that, really?

laudna - a potential puppet on delilah briarwood’s strings. her control issues stem from her (pretty justified given her life) fear that everyone will leave her, that she’s not worthy enough for people to remain by her side. if she just controls herself and finds the one thing that others want, they’ll stay, they have to, right?

orym - like imogen, orym’s holding himself together by the skin of his teeth sometimes. he’s trying to control situations and fights around him so that this time, maybe, hopefully, his loved ones won’t be hurt, never mind if he gets hurt in the process.

part of what fascinates me so in the last several episodes is how out of control the hells have felt and the catalysts for that. yu, who manipulates and worms their way around obstacles and uses others and changes the win conditions and gets what they want in the end, a dark mirror of the hells’ own tactics turned on them. ira, who has controlled and manipulated and wiped out any good intention fearne’s parents had, right down to smearing away their memories and emotions. delilah, who gaslights, manipulates, and abuses, whom they cannot escape without leaving one of their own to her “tender” care. fcg, who weaponized what little actual vulnerability this party has been able to let itself feel.

so strap yourselves in, folks, we’re in for a long haul here.

Orym's argument against Ludinus Da'leth and the Ruby Vanguard is essentially "The purpose of a system is what it does."

This is a systems theory coined by Stafford Beer around 2001. He posited there is "no point in claiming that the purpose of a system is to do what it constantly fails to do." It does not matter what someone tells you a system does if it does not reliably do that. The things it does consistently do are the actual purpose of the system.

Ludinus (and Liliana) claim the purpose of the Ruby Vanguard's violence is to free Exandria of oppression from the gods. Orym's point is that they have not consistently protected anyone from oppression. They consistently murder innocent people, indoctrinate vulnerable people into doing terrible violence (including children), support a ruling class that dominates the population through mind control and eugenics, and seek to release a predator so terrifying that the warring alien gods and native primordials worked together to seal it away as a threat to both of them.

So the logical conclusion is that the purpose of Ludinus' system is not to free anyone from tyranny, it's to install himself as the tyrant. And it does not matter what Ludinus says it's for or even what he believes it's for. The purpose of a system is what it does. And Orym has been personally and repeatedly victimized by what it does. Why wouldn't he keep reminding them of that?

Add onto that, the Ruby Vanguard is a death cult. They lure people in with believable lies. They use propaganda to control how people view them and to convince people to support them. Liliana has been groomed into a true believer who genuinely thinks what she has been told is true and that Ludinus' system does what he says it will. She has been convincing other people of this for years. Not because she's an inherently bad person but because everyone generally tries to convince others that what we believe is true. It is actually dangerous to let a cultist try to talk you into the cult's perspective. That's why Orym shuts it down.

Orym was already on edge but it's fully in a breakdown after FCG's sacrifice. One more iteration of Ludinus' system consistently murdering the people he loves. But he still told Imogen he wants her to have a good relationship with her mom again. He wants Liliana to make it through the other side of this. But that has to involve consistently stating the reality of what's happening against what she believes.

Ludinus believes in the rapture of the revolution. Burn everything to the ground on a fundamental level and a new perfect society will grow, with him to guide it. The reality is that kind of power vacuum consistently leads to horrific violence and conditions often get much, much worse. Especially for vulnerable people, who often do not survive. A lot about the gods' relationships to mortals probably needs to change, but this an incredibly dangerous gamble to fix it.

The purpose of a system is what it does. Any suggestion otherwise is cold comfort to Orym's family in the ground.

ok so i clarified otohan's build for myself

she's a 20th level psi warrior fighter base, and the backpack lets her use echo knight abilities. this all tracks--4 attacks, 2 action surges, 12 psionic power dice (+1 if regained on a bonus action) at a d12, and the ability to manifest two echoes at once. i'm going to guess that she uses two-weapon fighting based on the damage rolls from her offhand weapon. plus 3 legendary actions that she could use to attack with either weapon, dash, psi-powered leap (80 ft), telekinetic control (2 actions, move target 30 ft in a direction of her choice), and 3 legendary resistances.

if they hadn't immediately dealt with the backpack she could have been flashing all over the battlefield, 10 attacks each in the turns that she used action surge, 6 otherwise, split across multiple opponents or targeted to one. given her place in initiative, this could have been a full massacre before she went exaltant if she had hit the casters and healers first, instead of chetney. she had the movement for it.

speaking of that: she regained both action surges and presumably all of her psi power dice, gained resistance to all damage, and a +3 bonus to AC. I'm guessing the state was triggered by a damage threshold. i'm willing to bet that if she didn't have the health potion they might have gotten her down within the round, assuming the threshold is 1/4 of the total or something like that, and the 66 she got back brought her back over half.

on the other hand, even given the multiple deaths and 1 permadeath, bell's hells really worked hard on this one. ashton and fearne using the shards and doing big damage. fcg keeping the party up with 2 mass cure wounds and a revivify. laudna debuffing with bane and getting damage in with the eldritch blasts. imogen getting the backpack off. orym using bait and switch to defend imogen and overall being a tiny tank. chet dying, coming back, and still going around to get imogen up. so many crits. fcg's hail mary.

they got her now, so there's no more shadow assassinations, and they won't be splitting attention when they come back to kill ludinus.

good riddance.

Orym picking up that chunk of breastplate, thinking about how many people he lost fighting Otohan Thull

The moon, and sun, and sword, and shield, and now armour

This little robot that rolled into his life only a few months ago, who'd only known consciousness for a few years longer than that - sacrificed themself for the cause

So stupid as to ignore the proof that Exandria is round, but so wise to know truth and love, gone.

He needs another tattoo...

While Ashton’s mentality comes from a number of places, I feel like there’s a chronic illness/pain angle to it that’s really interesting. When you live with chronic pain, you end up having to put your body in harmful or painful situations to live your life. I and most of the people I know with chronic conditions are always doing a little calculation about what we spend our bodies on. For instance, I have hand and arm issues that make it difficult to write. I know I will be in pain when I take notes in class or write a paper, and I might not be able to use my hands for a little while after, but the level of pain that will cause me is worth it for my degree.

The self destructive/sacrificial mentality Ashton has feels like a very magnified version of that mentality. When you view your health and comfort as a calculation, “is this level of pain or injury worth it for this goal?”, it’s very easy to see how that could spiral into “is my life worth it for this goal?” when you’re in the situation and the mental state that Ashton is. I don’t think it’s the cause of their self destruction, but it feels like it could really play into it. If you already have to view your body as something you have to harm to use, the steps to get to where Ashton is now could definitely become smaller.

" I realize I'm not as good at lying as I thought. Which is weird because I do it all the time! " x

"Have you not realized that im a hypocrite?" This. For everyone unironically mad, please realize that this has been the core of ashton's character for eons. The moment he said "i need to be the hero" i knew hed be fucking toast. This is ashton, yall

Several of the big moments in the last episode couldn't have been possible without specific level-up choices.

Orym sticking with Fighter gave him all the attacks he needed to lay the smackdown on that reiloran juggernaut.

Fearne taking her second level in Rogue gave her the cunning actions she needed to close the distance AND assist Ashton in liberating the Shard from its resting place.

And Laudna choosing to max her Charisma is what put her spellcasting modifier at just the right threshold (+5) to be able to effectively counter Ludinus' 9th-level spell drop.

Funny, how all that worked out.

Orym: This situation is too big for me to deal with. I need an adult.

Bell's Hells/Crownkeepers: In case you haven't noticed, you ARE the adult here.

Orym: *panicking* I NEED AN ADULTIER ADULT.

I’ve mentioned this elsewhere but it feels relevant again in light of the most recent episode. Something that’s really fascinating to me about Orym’s grief in comparison to the rest of the hells’ grief is that his is the youngest/most fresh and because of that tends to be the most volatile when it is triggered (aside from FCG, who was two and obviously The Most volatile when triggered.)

As in: prior to the attack on Zephrah, Orym was leading a normal, happy, casual life! with family who loved him and still do! Grief was something that was inflicted upon him via Ludinus’ machinations, whereas with characters like Imogen or Ashton, grief has been the background tapestry of their entire lives. And I think that shows in how the rest of them are largely able to, if not see past completely (Imogen/Laudna/Chetney) then at least temper/direct their vitriol or grief (Ashton/Fearne/Chetney again) to where it is most effective. (There is a glaring reason, for example, that Imogen scolded Orym for the way he reacted to Liliana and not Ashton. Because Ashton’s anger was directed in a way that was ultimately protective of Imogen—most effective—and Orym’s was founded solely in his personal grief.)

He wants Imogen to have her mom and he wants Lilliana to be salvageable for Imogen because he loves Imogen. But his love for the people in his present actively and consistently tend to conflict with the love he has for the people in his past. They are in a constant battle and Orym—he cannot fathom losing either of them.

(Or, to that point, recognize that allowing empathy to take root in him for the enemy isn't losing one of them.)

It is deeply poignant, then, that Orym’s grief is symbolized by both a sword and shield. It is something he wields as a blade when he feels his philosophy being threatened by certain conversational threads (as he believes it is one of the only things he has left of Will and Derrig, and is therefore desperately clinging onto with both bloody hands even if it makes him, occasionally, a hypocrite), but also something he can use in defense of the people he presently loves—if that provocative, blade-grief side of him does not push them—or himself—away first.

(it won’t—he is as loved by the hells as he loves them. he just needs to—as laudna so beautifully said—say and hear it more often.)

so i think i have too many c3 thoughts right now to be entirely coherent so fuck it, we roll. warning: super long post, i insincerely apologize.

while everyone is getting lost in the sauce about the gods and whether they “deserve to live” and whatnot, i think we the audience (and the players to a lesser extent but that’s just my reading) are missing the forest for the trees. because c3 is not about the gods, it’s about our pcs, moreover, it is about our pcs and their relationships to/with power, control, and responsibility. as conflict avoidant (and avoidant in general) as our party is, we need something big and in your face to really delve into their understanding of their issues and the solutions they believe will solve the problems. the gods are only part of the story because they are the biggest, most in your face representation of these issues. the gods have power; do they use it to control others, to control fate? what are their responsibilities when it comes to what their followers do? does any of that even matter in the face of their annihilation? if they have power and don’t use it, what is their responsibility then? adjacently, is free will even a thing when dealing with time and power on a scale that mortals cannot comprehend? and if we “surrender” to that, if we “just have faith” are we ceding control of our own lives to these far more powerful beings and what would that say about us?

these themes are a continuation of what aabria started in exu where she hammered over and over again that power isn’t inherently good or evil, it’s the choices one makes that matter. and if you choose not to decide, if you choose to avoid the issue, you still have made a choice. and you need to own it.

back in the early days, bells hells were all potential, not quite coming into their power and scrounging around for any semblance of control they could manage. ashton told themself that nothing mattered, that everything was shit, and to care was to destroy themself. they chose to just let things happen. chet believed that the only way he could fully control his own fate was to be a loner. fcg thought they were in control and encouraged others, through admittedly not great means, to make choices and take what small control they could, even as they thought choices were not for them. fearne collected, stole, and held things and others too close to keep them from leaving. imogen fought for rigid control over herself, her powers, and her curiosity about said power. laudna avoided the problem altogether; out of sight, out of mind. if she didn’t think about or care about delilah, it didn’t matter, it wouldn’t hurt her or anyone else. orym ceded control of his future to all the other characters and tried to redo the loss of his husband every time he entered a fight.

nowadays? despite their own perceptions of helplessness, they are undeniably powerful enough to make a difference, to make a real mark on the world. and now they have to deal with the responsibility of that power. while also grappling with those control questions that haven’t yet been solved. they’re level 10 characters- the nein were dealing with the happy fun ball, obann and his cronies, and the citadel, for reference. the hells have power, after spending so long feeling powerless and out of control. and i don’t think any of them is comfortable with this yet. having power has not, and probably will not, solved their problems. ashton still has the hole in their head and chronic pain. fearne keeps losing people. imogen is still being drawn to the red moon. laudna still compartmentalizes and is desperately disengaged with her own power and choices. power and control are ultimately separate factors and beasts, is what i am getting at, and having one doesn’t necessarily equate with having the other.

it’s a lot, is what i’m saying. the hells by and large haven’t solved their personal control and power issues so it’s no wonder they are flailing about and rehashing the god question over and over and over again. because the question isn’t really about the gods, the question is about them.

chet and orym have the most straightforward relationships with power and control in the party. orym is regaining control of his life, regaining the ability to lay down what he wants and expects, gaining the ability to lead in the process. chet’s reconciled the betrayal of his authority figure and more than that has consistently and repeatedly owned up to his screw ups and when his lack of control has fucked him or others up. and i think that’s why the pair of them most successfully separate the gods’ power from the gods’ control over the world.

fcg, he who was made to care for others and who now chooses to do so, has gained a relationship with his goddess. not for nothing was the first major breakthrough the one where fcg made a choice, owned it, and followed through. fortune favors the bold, after all, and the changebringer encourages mortals to seize their fates with both hands. through the tentative first steps of self-care, they have also gained more control over themself and their future. they figured out that murderbot doesn’t have to kill or hurt anyone. through the power of someone else helping them, fcg was able to retain enough control to not spiral. and that’s how fcg sees their new mission: the gods have the power to help others (and use it) so he wants to help them. simple, straightforward.

but here it gets murky. because ashton and laudna in particular see power and control as the same thing. they aren’t separate as far as these characters are concerned. if you have power, why wouldn’t you use it? why wouldn’t you control every single thing you could? why wouldn’t you stop this horrid thing? why would you let this happen? where the pair of them differ is that ashton, practically possibility incarnate, has decided to act. has decided that they have been stuck in a cycle of self-pity and wallowing and, well, if the gods aren’t going to act, even on their own behalf, then fine, they will. fuck it. someone has to. he will put ludinus into the ground for what he’s done and then...well, they’ll be a hero (don’t think i didn’t notice your word choices all episode, taliesin, i am watching ashton like a hawk here). through this decision, this acknowledgement of their own vulnerability, of how much they actually have to lose and how much they will have to fight to keep it, ashton has sent themself on the path towards regaining some control over their life. not for nothing have they been so focused on what power and possibilities their head could bring lately. but don’t think they’re doing it for the gods, oh no. they’re here for all the people like them.

but laudna? oh, laudna feels completely out of control. has for a while. her typical avoidance and compartmentalization strategies were completely failing her in issylra. in the face of all of this, she feels powerless. so what does she do? reach for control the only way she knows how: by using someone else’s power and giving them another foothold with which to control laudna’s own life. again. and after? laudna’s overwhelmed, she’s guilty, she’s worried about what everyone else will think. notice that she doesn’t yet seem worried about what delilah could do to her; it’s the betrayal to her friends, how they see her that worries her most. that she wasn’t strong enough, powerful enough, big enough to find another way (never mind that the facts of the situation were overwhelmingly on her side, especially before she called down delilah). that she lost control again. she’s a puppet on delilah’s strings so long as delilah has power that laudna wants or needs, why would the gods be any different in her eyes?

so, strangely in the middle, we have imogen. imogen, who intimately knows that power and control aren’t the same. but unlike chet and orym, in imogen’s experience, the more power she has, the more out of control she becomes. the more  power she gets, the more she’s drawn to that damn moon whether she wants to be or not. sure, the circlet helps now but it’s a band-aid, a temporary measure, and imogen knows it. and even it couldn’t completely block out her dreams. the cost she pays for her powers continues to climb (she lost her mother, her best friend and two of her party members were murdered for it, this solstice could end the world because of ludinus and ruidusborn like her, she can’t tell how overwhelmed laudna is without her powers). imogen, who questioned whether the bad guys have a point before any of this really kicked off.

and fittingly outside this strange intersection is fearne. fearne has no interest in the gods, really. she doesn’t seem to care one way or the other. however, she did just receive a vision from the duskmaven which honestly almost seems tailored to her specifically. the duskmaven’s champion, her person, is trapped in unending agony, caused by his love for his person. that fearne understands all too well. what she really cares about is her people, her new family. and so, she’s caught in the middle. because right now, all the group can agree on is that they want to stick together to take down ludinus. so where is that going to leave them, exactly, once he’s gone? where will that leave her, with a potential chet/orym/fcg vs laudna/ashton/imogen split, when she wants them all, when they are all hers? and how will her newly found sense of responsibility play into the next stage of the hells’ fight?

so i think that intersection between power, control, and responsibility is why certain characters are moving forward and why others are stumbling backwards. and why certain characters are gung-ho about saving the gods, others indifferent, while others are finding non-god reasons to involve themselves in the plot.

Laudna going through a spiral about whether Ashton is a bad person because he wanted the power of both shards and did something stupidly dangerous to do it vs. Laudna deliberately feeding Delilah by using Hunger of the Shadow on Bor'Dor and Willmaster Edmuda.

Absolutely love it. Girl please keep projecting your worst fears about yourself and destructive habits on your friends and get scared of them without ever stepping back and assessing your own actions, it is delicious.

Bonus points that Imogen and Laudna are the biggest enablers of each other and not at all inclined to check each other's negative behaviors. Imogen still has a healthy fear about her powers, though, especially right now.

Meanwhile Laudna is still convinced that Orym is fine and the stable one while no one questions how Orym got Hex or that he's willingly using Ludinus' Quintessence Array to drain Edmuda of her life force. A totally normal stable good guy thing to do. Definitely no nosedive here. Although Laudna is irritated at him for pressuring everyone to keep going and not back down, and that he got the Quintessence Array use and not her. (Because again, she is trying to feed her own need for power.)

Somehow Fearne is the only one who's beginning to think they all might be going too far and getting scared, but they're not really listening to her. She saw her potential to become Dark Fearne and actually reevaluated her life. (Even if she's still a chaos being.)

Bell's Hells are great because they're like NPCs who ended up as the B-Team who keeps happening to be in the right place at the right time to be in the middle of all these events leading to this cataclysmic events that are so much bigger than they are. It's FUN that it's happening faster than they can recon with it and they're getting more and more desperate to not go under in a way that is actually making them go under faster.

They're seeing it in each other but not in themselves. That's the tragedy. They're so desperate to win it doesn't matter at what cost anymore. They're all just competing to see who can sacrifice themselves for the cause first while dragging their enemies down with them. They're going to end up being the monsters someone else has to fight, even though they kept trying to do good and fight the darkness.

the fact that orym, chetney, and imogen primarily guided the communication exercise gives so much insight into the leadership structure of bell’s hells. even the ways that each of them did it—orym giving rapid fire instruction and adjusting the direction based on response. chetney sticking to one mode (clock system) and being direct and methodical. imogen holding pace with thought and encouraging with every step—keeping emotions calm. granted that’s also the players’ communication styles coming through, but still.

at this point, i would say that they form the base that bell’s hells revolves around. orym as the lookout, as the one on alert both in and out of the party. chetney observing and learning about the environment physically and personally. and imogen guiding decisions by calming emotions.

The Changebringer calls her newfound ward onto a new path. A path she and so many others had tried so hard to show FCG: one of life and love and jubilation. A path he only discovered in the final seconds on the Material Plane

Maybe they'll be returned to their friends at another time - but for now he rests knowing that he saved his family

I just had a realization, Vax repeatedly coming back and not letting Keyleth truly move on…. It’s exactly what he did to Gilmore in campaign 1 when he started seeing Keyleth.

How he told him he was in love with someone else and then immediately kiss him

How after every mission he kept coming back to him to repeatedly tell him he couldn’t be with him but that he still love him

How he didn’t hesitated to follow Gilmore into a dark corner of a castle wearing nothing but a bathrobe he gave him

He might now be an immortal demigod champion of the Raven Queen but deep down he’s still the same scare little elf boy starve for love and unable ever let go.