have your feelings changed regarding FCG as a character and the way he interacts with the group in light of recent discoveries? speaking of, do you feel differently about the way CR3 has tie-ins to CR1 versus CR2? (eg aeor, the aeormatons, ludinus). personally i find the CR2 references less... intrusive narratively despite also not having that much to do with CR3's intended setting. im not sure if it's just recency bias or the fact that i also prefer CR2 over CR1, or that there's less of them

Yes re FCG; I think I've made that clear but the addition of their interest in the Changebringer and their focus shifting to trying to more seriously help people, and in general their somewhat grating positivity giving way to a more complex range of emotions have all been helpful. I am still going to be frustrated by the subclass build but that hilariously hasn't come up because the most recent combat really was just a waiting game for them, and the second-most recent combat was them trying to kill everyone.

While the murderbot concept itself isn't super interesting on its own, I think Sam as FCG is tentatively engaging with the concept of "what does it mean that this was your purpose, to be helpful until you snapped and killed everyone", and that has a lot more narrative promise than "Oh, I'm not a real sweet little metal boy?" What does it mean to be from a society where you were considered a citizen? How do you fit in? What do you do now, literally over a millennium after achieving said purpose, when it still exists and has hurt people you care about?

And yes to the C2 vs. C1 tie ins. I try to be clear that I'm talking about my (well-informed) opinions here, usually, but like. Objectively, the Campaign 2 tie ins are normal consequences of living in the world of Exandria: the Mighty Nein restored Devexian, and the Cerberus Assembly is fundamentally changed through their actions, which means Ludinus is likely looking for new and more subtle avenues of power that are easier to hide from Caleb and the Cobalt Soul. Or perhaps he was always working on this, and it just didn't come up!

I don't see the aeormatons as any issue for Marquet in the same way that like, Artagan's gate is technically from Tal'Dorei but Jester is from the Menagerie Coast. While they originated from Aeor, we know from Calamity that they existed in other cities. It's very possible that FCG's target had been in, say, Cael Morrow, and that he spent most of his time there. The moon/Feywild stuff is also disconnected, but the center of the conspiracy does appear to be a hero from a major war in Marquet, and the solstice's ley nexus is likely in Marquet too, so it is still tied to the continent.

The Campaign 1 stuff on the other hand is really only here because two characters are from Tal'Dorei with extensive ties to Campaign 1 figures. Again: Fearne isn't from Marquet or even this plane, and Chetney is expressly from Wildemount, but both their stories center on happenings within Marquet, even if their own ties to the continent are new. But the only reason we're talking about the Air Ashari and Whitestone and Delilah is because Orym and Laudna are extended Campaign 1 references. I'd have similar problems, as I said, if someone was a Soltryce Academy student who could call on Caleb whenever they needed help; or if someone was a member of Fjord and Jester's crew. It's not that it's C1 and not C2; it's that it is unavoidably about things already pretty extensively explored in C1 and with direct ties to the PCs of C1. The C2 references are more tangential and Bells Hells is on their own for figuring out what all of this means, and that's interesting; having Keyleth around to solve your problems for you, or "somehow Delilah Briarwood returned" is not.