ROUND 3: Taako, Magnus and Merle VS Giovanni Potage
About Taako, Magnus, and Merle: A trio of adventurers, who's in-universe group name is Tres Horny Boys. Their antics come in both group ways; such as when they jumped down a well when none of them can levitate, and individual ways; such as when Taako brought and item that can be traded for someone's most valuable item and then sold it back to the same person for a Flaming Raging Poisoning Sword of Doom which he use as an accessory. When Magnus and Merle stole from a Bank while stopping an actual Bank Robbery, Taako threaten to rat them out to the officer outside. Merle chased someone into a quarry; which Magnus had just told him to not enter, to persuade them into following Pan via the Extreme Teen Bible, which he introduced with a song. When they group was blocked by a mass of vines, Merle flirted with the plant which caused it to be infatuated and grossed Magnus and Taako. Taako threaten his student for if he ever became more powerful then Taako, and he then brushed it off as him practicing for a play.
About Giovanni: An former captain of the Banzai Blasters that left to form his own villain group (which is currently made of other Ex-Banzai Blasters he used to lead) with a villain persona called Vincent Murder. He refers to his minions as "My Boys" which he uses gender-neutrally (but will stop if one of them said they don't want to be called that), he makes a grandiose entrance when breaking into the museum and gives every single on of his attacks descriptively-dramatic names such as "Lav-Acid", "Fog of Lost Souls", "Soup That is Too Hot", and "Teleports Behind You", he uses the "Soul Slugger Doom Bat of Maximum Destruction" which is literally just a baseball bat with his mom's knife taped to it (with him technically stealing said knife).
revisiting the balance finale and I am completely fascinated by davenport immediately concluding that they need to leave on the starblaster and continue to the next cycle. that’s so wild. it asks you to confront the fact that, even though the stolen century was only a few episodes, it covers 100 times more time than the rest of the podcast. davenport is ready for these last ten years to be just an incident in a long list of incidents. he’s ready for another 100 years, however long it takes to figure out a better plan. the fact that it could bring lup back! the fact that if lucretia won’t agree, it’s better to kill her and talk about it next cycle if need be! the fact that none of them could stay even if they wanted to. the fact that davenport of all of them is the most willing to let the world burn. would he have waited to try and get the light from lucretia? would taako? imagine what the first moments of them reforming in a new planar system would be. holy istus i can’t stop thinking about it.
so im not trying to start anything, but it has to be said. garfield has been collecting blood from various people and using it for nefarious purposes, as well as just kind of being a dick.
What is Ligma? Some minor god you think will save you when your plane is consumed?
🌱 merlehighchurch1
LIGMA BALLS OHHHHHHHH
✨ you-know-from-tv Follow
ohmygod you killed him
(53,007 notes)
🍑 juicy-wizard-official
↻ 7-bird-watcher Follow
🚀 cap-n-port Follow
A picture of the moon I took with my new camera! If you look really closely, you can see the B.O.B. on the left side.
🌱 merlehighchurch1
🚀 cap-n-port Follow
You can't do that here
(68,913 notes)
🌱 merlehighchurch1
↻ merlehighchurch Follow
🌱 merlehighchurch Follow
hey guys! it's me, merle hightower highchurch. just wanted to come on here and say that i'm a total loser and lup is the coolest bitch alive
🌱 merlehighchurch1
STOP
#this is elder abuse
(1,002 notes)
💀 reaper-kravitz-official
.
#my coworkers are driving me CRAZY rn #what do you mean it was 'just a little bit' of necromancy #WE ARE LITERALLY REAPERS LIKE HELLO #and now rq will be pissed at me. great #vent #do not rb
(2 notes)
🕸️ krav-dementia-raven-way
i fucked up i fucked up i fucked up i fu
#ohhhhh my god accidentally posted on the wrong blog #i didn't realize until BOTH of my coworkers had seen it fuck me #i am dating one of their brothers as well so #dreading our next work meeting and my date plans tonight
(1 note)
🌈 lucretiaadventurezone
i need to pick up taako by the scruff of his neck and shake him around
This was a multi-animator project that spanned nearly 6 years from 2017 to 2023 with over 150 participants! The video covers an edited version of episode 4 of The Adventure Zone: Balance running about 34 minutes long.
ALWAYS rotating TAZ: Balance around in my brain like microwave but ESPECIALLY with the announcement of The Suffering Game graphic novel
The dope thing they can do (and are doing) with the graphic novel series is sprinkle in moments of foreshadowing and hints to the reader about what REALLY might be going on here, which is so cool and I’m a huge fan of it, especially when you’re telling a story in this form.
But what is REALLY FUCKING TASTY about Balance as a story is that none of the motherfuckers telling it had any clue what they were doing when they started
Gerblins is dick jokes and not knowing how dice work and making fun of each other for voices. LICHRALLY the scene where Taako grabs the Umbrastaff is immediately proceeded by Clint trying different voices for Merle while Justin begs him to stop, as Taako. Merle gets launched across the room cuz he failed his save, and now Taako has an umbrella. The scene moves on.
Griffin brought them up to the BOB, introduced them to the Director, and gave them memories of a war fought over nameless, lost, powerful but mysterious artifacts. The memory that Taako takes from it is the idea of soured cream (ya know, for his taco quest).
And then they’re off, on different adventures, making friends, saving lives, making more dick jokes, and Griffin is in the background, slowly building in the meta-plot, as all DMs do.
But this meta-plot was HUGE. It was ALL-CONSUMING. It completely changes everything we know about this world and these characters. It takes the moments of dick jokes, and arguments about character voices, and flirting with death, and adds a layer of tragedy and complexity that just wasn’t present the first time they told that story.
AND THAT’S WHY THIS STORY KICKS ASS. The vibe of the story changed as Tres Horny Boys grew closer and closer to remembering the lives they had lost, as Griffin upped the stakes, as people started dying. They still don’t know shit for most of The Suffering Game, but you absolutely could not have predicted the tone of that arc after just listening to Gerblins. It sounds like a completely different story. And so when the other shoe drops, when shit breaks bad, when it’s the end of the world… again, and they have to reclaim their Stolen Century…
It makes sense. The tone has shifted enough to accommodate that kind of change. The characters have grown (back) into themselves enough to make this work.
Because TAZ: Balance is a tragedy. But the tragedy happened before the podcast even started, and had been erased. So of course it started off with goofs and dildo jokes. Of course the three of them started being standoff-ish with each other and making light of every situation that should have had a lot more weight. They didn’t know what they had lost, and we, the audience, didn’t either. So it was easy to laugh and joke… until slowly, it wasn’t so much anymore.
Plenty of people have praised Griffin’s storytelling abilities, but I think the thing that was most impressive to me was how he took the disparate threads laid out behind the Boys on their adventures, and followed them backwards, into the story they had lost, and forwards, into the ending they earned. I fucking love that he settled on Istus as the deity to interact with them, because I don’t think there’s a better representation of the story Griffin was weaving behind the scenes of the arcs.
Story and Song wasn’t really an arc driven by dice rolls and role playing - but it wasn’t railroading either. Griffin took every story they had told, every happy ending they had fought for, and twined them around and through each other. The world was saved not because of a lucky nat 20 roll, but because every person they had helped through the story came out in force to fight beside them to save their world.
And so in the end, the Stolen Century was a tragedy. But The Adventure Zone: Balance was a story of hope, of family, of the power that just a few loveable doofuses can have when they move through the world, making friends and saving lives. So when the world was ending and they needed help, there were dozens of people waiting to hear the Story and the Song that would give them the push they needed to fight, and the hope they needed to win.
[Id: A fully rendered digital drawing of Merle Highchurch from The Adventure Zone.
He is a fat, Black dwarf man with long, wavy gray hair and a full beard. He has a nicked ear and a small scar on his shoulder as well as otter-like whiskers and a protruding fang.
He is sitting in an office chair, his elbows resting on a table. He is glaring at an off-screen character (John), pointing down at the table as if to emphasize a point. A text queue underneath him says: “- You can apologize to me and tell me you were wrong”. End description.]
The Adventure Zone is so funny with regard to the boys’ interactions with Clint because sometimes they’re like “what do you think Daddy?” or “whoa Daddy that was so cool!” and other times it’s “I’ve told you this so many times old man you have a microphone, if you yell again I’m evicting you”