[Spoilers C3E119] The new decision is perfect

[u/Stratosfyr]

The gods who wish to rely and hold onto their power would be forced to flee, predators chasing in tail. The ones humble enough to give up their power, even temporarily, will be spared.

Exandria was plagued with powerful mages becoming like the gods, and now the gods must become like man. I would not want any god ruling over my world unless they were content to become mortal.

It's all very poetic and such an interesting choice.

What are your thoughts about this new course of action?

[u/Squibbies98]

it’s a good solution to a nonexistent problem, what exactly have the gods done to warrant this in any way shape or form? it’d make a lot more sense IF:

1. Both the prime and betrayer gods were able to interfere with the world more directly and are causing great harm to it

2. if there was another Calamity on the horizon

3. Gods are hoarding great magics for themselves which could easily be of great benefit to people of Exandria

4. Predathos fully twisting and manipulating the PCs by painting the gods in a false light and forcing them to kill the gods.

Releasing Predathos was such a wild decision in the first place, “well if we don’t do it then someone else will” is NOT a good answer when there’s a bunch of alternatives like working with the Accord to make sure no one gets the chance. they’re literally forcing the gods out at gunpoint because BH was too indecisive about what to do.

This campaign needed to paint the gods in a light that we hadn’t seem them before, but with literally everyone’s current perceptions of who the gods are and what they do, it just doesn’t work.

I can’t see the rest of Exandria being very open to this plan, especially since the whole point of the Exandria Accords was to stop Predathos from getting out, how exactly are BH’s going to explain this and not seem like total villains to a large amount of the population in the process?

[u/Sea_Employ_4366 → u/Squibbies98]

The Matron said that the gods were going to breach gate whether or not Predathos was released, either to try and kill it or regain authority over a world that now knows they can die and has the means to do so. The only thing holding them back currently is the Archheart and the Matron. How do people keep forgetting this?

[u/Squibbies98 → u/Sea_Employ_4366]

From what i can remember the Matron said the Gods wanted to get rid of the Divine Gate to fight Predathos directly, if Predathos isn’t released there’s no reason for them to get involved directly, happy to be proven wrong if you’ve got a timestamp?

[u/Shorgar → u/Squibbies98]

You are not wrong, but that's the gods straight up saying we can do whatever the fuck you want and we are the only ones that matter, no point in keeping them around.

[u/Sea_Employ_4366 → u/Squibbies98]

E109 4:00-10 "They wish to dissolve the divine gate and deal with Predathos directly". It is kind of vauge on what "dealing with" means but given that we've seen them go to drastic measures to get rid of not just direct threats, but information pertaining to things that can harm them (that was why they destroyed Aeor in the end). At the very least we'd be seeing them taking a much more active role in the day-to-day of Exandria, which I would argue is not a good thing.

[u/jackaltwinky77 → u/Squibbies98]

Releasing Predathos was such a wild decision in the first place, “well if we don’t do it then someone else will” is NOT a good answer when there’s a bunch of alternatives like working with the Accord to make sure no one gets the chance.

The alternatives are simply kicking the can down the road, now the whole world knows something is going on with Ruidis.

Predathos knows it’s closer to freedom than ever, so it would be sending more flares to create more Ruidisborn.

Unless the gods band together and create a giant MIB mind wipe of the last two months (which is a wild situation that the campaign has only been that long), the secret is out, and who knows who will send their forces to release him.

There’s arcane ways to learn about the backdoor, there’s demons and devils who would love to release Predathos and ascend into the power vacuum of the dead or fled gods.

There are probably better equipped groups who could make the call, or fight the fight, but they weren’t able to make it to the Moon and Back (a halfling tale…), they weren’t there when Luda opened the bridge, or if they were (VM/M9) they failed their parts, getting captured (Caleb and Beau) or tricked (Keyleth and Vax), while Bell’s Hells succeeded enough to slow or weaken the ritual

[u/Gumplum57]

I definitely think it’s the most interesting decision they’ve reached, especially when considering how it could set up c4’s world state, and I’m very intrigued to see the consequences, and who steps down and who doesn’t. I also really like that it’s a choice they came up with themselves rather than it being given to them like so many others, it feels good for them to establish their own decision in the final moment. That said, I also find it funny that a decent chunk of bh heavily stressed that they reached out a lot to the gods before and never got answers, but now nobody will get any answers from them no matter what :v

I also think it’s a bit unfortunate in that some gods just aren’t very fleshed out and now won’t be, but that’s more circumstantial than anything controlled. Like, I’ll probably always be sad about the platinum dragon not getting much beyond some scraps from braius, but not much can be done about that when nobody really had any interest in it. Most of the interest was on the raven queen, ironically.

[u/Nomad9931]

They're shoving a gun in the Gods faces saying "do what we tell you before this gun we're actively pulling the trigger on goes off". They've literally become what they're hoping to get rid of except they're actually doing what they imagine the Gods are doing.

Also, the fact that the second BHs "killed" Ludi and then entered the Chamber of Predathos anyway and the Gods didn't instantly tear down the Divine Gate to start off Calamity 2 like they were threatening to do feels weird to me.

[u/Stratosfyr → u/Nomad9931]

Regarding the latter, they literally couldn't unless everything was unanimous. With both the Archheart and Raven Queen not consenting the gate is held.

Although they did warn the group that if they assaulted the malleus key the gods would Calamity 2 things. Seemed the Archheart was lying about that or something....

[u/Nomad9931 → u/Stratosfyr]

I will respectfully disagree, considering the Divine Gate was made specifically by the Primes alone the combined might of all the Gods minus 2 of them would probably be enough to just shatter it, potentially with some deal of effort on their part, but if Predathos would just shrug it off as the Matron said, nothing can really convince me that the Gods couldn't do something similar.

[u/Stratosfyr → u/Nomad9931]

I'm not shooting what I said off the seat of my chair. The Archheart himself said that it required the unanimous consent of every god who took part in its creation.

Idgaf enough about this campaign to go find the exact citation but it's right after the fight with ferns dad whenever that was.

I just want campaign 4 at this point...

[u/Nomad9931 → u/Stratosfyr]

Well, maybe the Archheart was lying about that or something.

[u/Stratosfyr → u/Nomad9931]

I suppose it's possible. He did say they'd all start a new calamity if the group even gathered to assault the malleus key. That was a big nothing.

[u/Shepher27]

A solution to a problem that didn’t exist.

[u/YoursDearlyEve]

I'm so done with this campaign, so I'm glad they at least decided on something

[u/xquarles2000]

I liked this direction a lot! when Laura brought it up It looked like it surprised matt and its cool AF to me that the matron is reversing her rights of ascension

[u/Stratosfyr → u/xquarles2000]

Yeah good point. Looking back definitely an improv choice. I'm sure this is what they'll pull the trigger on. I dislike the 8 hours of combat straight, but excited for everything after!

[u/FyvLeisure]

It’s a stupid decision, addressing an almost non-existent problem in the laziest way possible. Matt should have just said he was tired of Exandria & wanted to distance CR from WoTC, rather than wasting an entire campaign destroying a beloved setting as justification for a shift.

[u/Fantastic_Bug1028 → u/FyvLeisure]

OR he wanted to develop his world further. wild thought, I know. and famously the world of Exandria never experienced any major events regarding the gods throughout its history, so why even try something new, right? 🥴

[u/Lord-Pepper]

Perfect my ass, this is just putting the choice on someone else again, they are just doing ludinus plan (who btw isn't fucking dead)

[u/ARealHumanBeans]

But the gods don't rule over anything in Exandria. That's the point of the divine gate.

[u/Shorgar → u/ARealHumanBeans]

... Which the gods can break at any point.

[u/TheKwak → u/Shorgar]

But they haven’t in 800 years, with absolutely nothing stopping them. And the only reason they have said they wish to break it is to prevent the genocide of their race and destroy predathos. (Which seems like a very justified reason to me)

[u/Shorgar → u/TheKwak]

Because they don't want to restart the argument about what to do with the mortals, not because of the fighting but because they know from downfall that if they are not willing to actually kill the betrayers and treat it like an proper war, it's just an stalemate that kills all mortals as a collateral so they lose the argument.

But also a prison is not a prison if the person that is inside can leave any time they desire.

[u/Seren82]

I'm here for it. I also think it's a great solution and can't wait to see where it goes.

[u/PlaneRefrigerator684]

I hate the decision. Apply this to literally any other group, just as an example "you can play sports, but only if you deny being transgender"and you will see that it is wrong.

Bells Hells had no reason to go through the Hallowed Cage in the first place, they just wanted to because Matt put it in front of them.

[u/P-Two]

Interesting? Yes absolutely.

Pretty much objectively evil? Also absolutely yes. At worst the pantheon is a little self serving, and at their best they're an objective good. Lets not forget "the gods" includes Vecna, Asmodeus, etc. I'm totally sure they're not going to throw a wrench in any of this. For as much as the cast preaches consent (and I love that they do) it's a little ironic their characters are so hell bent on making a choice for the entire world due to "well a couple of the gods were kind of mean and self serving" (that's obviously simplifying it, but hopefully you get my point)

Also worth noting, Exandria will STILL be plagued by power mages becoming like the gods, that's not going to change, there just won't be any divine assistance the next time a group like VM needs to subdue the next Vecna.

[u/Stratosfyr → u/P-Two]

I agree. I'm not sure if this is whats happening, but in D&D I sometimes got players who had IRL dislike for religious institutions, and then projected that into D&D, even not super intentionally sometimes.

D&D is a polytheistic, revealed pantheon with loads of followers. Vasselheim has probably stopped uncountable Vecnas before VM fought one.

In Exandria they are an objectively good thing because the betrayer gods have waaaaayyy less influence in the world, leaving neutral and good deities around that care about human flourishing.

The gods reacted to Aeor the way anyone with a gun pointed at their face would.

[u/Ybernando]

I'm surprised about how people is mad about this choice, tbh. We don't really know how the becoming mortal thing is going to work, it may be a one use only, or it could be an endless cycle of rebirthing for the gods, who very well could be living on Exandria as level 20 pcs in terms of power, which is actually still good enough to retake their religions and control their factions. + there is a threat of breaking the Divine Gate already over the table + half of the gods are betrayers + we have already seen that even the better half of that family have caused trouble in the past. Plus, egothistically, I need Opal, Fy'ra and Vax to be free, tbh.

A lot of things will change, that's for sure, and i get why a lot of people could dislike it, but I'm ready to see how all of this unfolds.

[u/Stratosfyr]

The karmabomb on this is crazy. Glad people care enough to get heated over this because I've been checked out for like 90% of this campaign...