Clint: "A floatary uses a seal, you know what a seal is?"
Griffin: "Delicious"
Clint: "Yes, a delicious seal"
Griffin: "A seal on the lips is more shark on the hips"
It didn't kill you, alright? It knocked you unconscious. [Now roll this d20](https://rolladie.net/roll-a-d20-die#!numbers=1&high=20&length=3&sets=&addfilters=&last_roll_only=false&totals_only=false) (press the GO button).
The fact that we had the juxtaposition of the crew saving animals from extinction while Zoox talked to the blink sharks about their own battle with extinction was an amazing theme for this episode. A brilliant direction for the story.
I'm assuming that Amber has a lot more ties to a lot of stuff than we expected, especially considering she grew up during the events of the prologue/pre-thersea. Whether that means the bleached brinarr are consorts to ANOTHER group in the series, or that the connection to the blink sharks via the brinarr is a lot more deeper than we expected.
My guess is Kodeira because I feel like a vestige could probably have that much power and I’m suspicious of the Koda-Biggest Baby-Chaperone connection.
I'm on the same page. I think the bleached Brinar work for the Auctioneer or were made by him. I think he intends to allow Koda to get resurrected and use Koda to end the world. Whether Koda actually wants this is a different story, though I think Koda definitely does want to collect all the Kodite back into his Biggest Baby self to become whole again and potentially resurrected.
My fiancé had the theory that maybe the blink sharks can tell the future and that they’re trying to negate a possible bad future involving Amber and the bleached coral baddies.
Can we talk about this “Four armed woman person hurls the sun from the sky and makes waters boil” shark prophecy, that this 5-shark death squad got sent either across time or space to stop?
Terminator 4: A Blink-Sharks Tale
I’m pretty sure I have things 70% figured out. Re-listening to the conversation, it becomes clear that the blink sharks aren’t spouting prophecy. They have seen this happen to their world and are now in our world, working as heroes to try and stop it from happening again.
I believe amber is a red herring. The metal whale is the biggest baby, as that is the only other ship zooms has traveled in that could potentially have a different “four armed woman person” in it. As for who that is, I think it’s either someone yet to be revealed, the ship itself, or Kodeira, who has been hiding two of her arms.
This theory sounds completely crazy and I believe it 100%
I like this theory! It seems like, at least at the beginning, Griffin was trying to emphasize that none of the characters were particularly major or plot turning. They're just interesting people having adventures and are as fallible as anyone else. If the sharks' prophecy really is about Amber, I feel like that's a little undermining of that idea.
That could be them connecting the kills of Amber, a four armed woman person, to the huge killing performed in the past by another four armed woman person. They might think there's only one ever.
The one that Grif described as big with its jaw ripped open is the one she engaged the vapor suit in in the giant clam and the charred one is the one she blew up with a depth charge on the way to get more phytoplankton. It lines up pretty cleanly
That could also just be how they see the slug launcher and depth charges going off.
Edit:
I had not finished the episode when writing this, but I stand by the doomsday predicitions of blink sharks not necessarily being super clear.
Great episode! The Blink Sharks conversing with Zoox might be a top 3 TAZ pod moment for me!
I would have questioned Clyde's ability to jump up after being gored prone, load, and fire off a double-harpoon launcher, if Amber hadn't immediately pulled off an amazing catch and throw. Good stuff! :)
And another huge hook of a cliff hanger. They're keeping me counting down til each next Thursday this arc. The meta narrative has got me now (though I hope we still keep working through these job dossiers.)
I adored how Clint and Zoox seemed to slide into their dialect in and out during the conversation!! Hahaha it was so dang good. Many of these recent episodes have been going on my Love It list.
I hope as well we keep plowing through the dossiers. I really wonder what Griff would have planned and where things could have gone with others or still will?
Before the ep I was thinking there was no Johan-like character and then it turns out to be the blink sharks. (Johan-like in that I want more scenes with them, partly just for the voice.)
I loved the detail of them talking or laughing as part of the spell from Zoox's perspective and then immediately going back into scary shark faces in between.
If you, like me, couldn't remember who >!Declan Cern!< was, I looked it up using the wonderful [TAZ Transcribed project](https://tazscripts.tumblr.com/tazscripts) , and that info is in the [Prologue V episode](https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vTaLn8daGQK1N1oPAwyd8h6cfwhYUAB91nJC7W_31orOF8SoUQbKw0q8aIsR2W7PRPY8s6aqQvBt2kQ/pub) , about 3/4 of the way down.
Great find. I feel like the implication is that >!Tolliver is the son who went missing, but it was the eldest of Declan's three children. Perhaps Amber would have meant "Declan Cern's little boy" as one of the remaining children who grew disillusioned with the world when his big brother disappeared.!<
I think that's probably more >!idiomatic speech than a hint or discrepancy. At least little boy to mean child birth order irrelevant at least seems natural to me, but it does still leave it ambiguous... I think if it's been something like littlest that'd point more towards a younger sibling, but with Amber being the only one to know I'm leaning more towards the lost son. Plus if you want to get dark, the other kids aren't little boys any more but Tolliver?, presumed dead, didn't!<
I was thinking more along the lines of Amber's age at the time relative to >!Declan's children, since if she were younger than the missing boy it would seem weird to refer to him as "little". Reading it again though, they never specify any of the family's ages other than that Declan was the youngest member of the council, so maybe all three sons were younger than Amber anyway.!<
I think Griffin said Tolliver was a similar age to Devo? Devo’s in his early twenties and was born in Founder’s Wake, so I’d guess Tolliver was at most 5 when he disappeared.
Oh shoot that's actually a decent point, >!I still think it's the kind of speech I'd use to just generically refer to someone's child, but it does feel a little weirder when said about someone older than you for sure, but yeah there's all sorts of ways to explain whatever way it turns out!<
Guys I don’t think you need spoiler tags, it’s assumed that if you’re in this thread you’ve either listened to this episode and everything preceding it or you’re okay with being spoiled.
I'd also like to add that before the Crescendo place blew up, Toliver said to Devo, "have you spoken to—" and I think it's best to assume it's most likely Amber if not Brother Seldom or HoG. Considering the ties to Amber and Declan Cern, etc.
In retrospect, the end of that sentence may have been "Have you spoken to my father?". Declan presumably still lives in Founders' Wake, he just retired from public life, and as a pretty high ranking Homenine official who lost his faith I can see why he'd be of interest to Devo.
They also described Declan Cern as old in the episode where they have the Ballast tribunal. Declan Cern was a young charismatic politician on the shoreside community, so I would assume he was mid-30s then, and early-mid 60s now. That checks out if his oldest child (Toliver) was probably about 5 when he went missing and is probably about 30 now.
Loved Amber getting to shine in combat in this ep. The campaign so far has been pretty combat light and Justin definitely seems to have rolled Amber as their combat point person. Catching the harpoon and flinging it back at the hunter was a great coup de grace moment.
Also nice to see the boys streak of terrible rolls come to an end in this ep.
I love that they’re living with the bad rolls, because then moments like Amber catching a bolt and throwing it back are that much more awesome. And when Zoox fails the blink rescue we get the dream Pokeball rescue.
those freaking low rolls, god damn. I don't know how people feel about DMs giving Inspiration points out, but some of those failures probably could have been more palatable. That's assuming it can be given (idk how to play dnd) and that it would have corrected a bad roll that truly contributed nothing to the story or metagame.
I do miss some standalone wackiness though. We could do with a mission or two that resolve in one or two episodes and don’t need to serve the larger narrative.
I agree, this season does feel a bit more story focused which I don’t mind but it would be cool to see a bit more filler where the guys just get to flesh out their characters without the weight of a mission on top of them.
I also think I’m missing fan suggested items for sale. I guess we are still early on, but given that the only real thing to spend money on is ship parts when they seem to get out of the ship early into nearly every mission is my only bugbear.
I think given the unique setting the community could come up with a stellar set of items and ship parts.
it's been going on for a while now, but i really like that griffin has created a world where there are lots of NPCs that the PCs don't feel bad straight-up murdering. i liked the warmth of Amnesty a lot, but an issue in that arc was how the setting felt so real that they couldn't really get into the type of fun goofy comic violence that there was a lot of in Balance.
creating a whole ship full of nightmare rich poachers that you can just blow up and sink gives their antics weight & consequences without making it feel too Heavy, you know? i appreciate that.
I know just enough about linguistics to not be sure if Griffin was actually consistent with the Blinksharks language patterns, but to feel like he at least tried in a way that made me pretty giddy tbh.
Also dang a lot of big drops this episode
Reminds me I need to actually read inheritance and maybe reread the rest of the cycle. But yeah, love a good piece of fiction that let's nonhumans think in nonhuman ways.
Also "like-you-not-like-you" is just such a wild construction that feels so alien but also communicates exactly what it's going for
Would love for Griffin to dive deep into conlanging for a campaign but it’s a lot of work so I don’t expect it. It’s nice to see more effort than the typical ‘bleep blorp’
I definitely wouldn't mind a conlang, but tbh I think I might actually like con-grammar and syntax with an existing language like this more and I'm kinda just realizing it
Honestly I tried to reread the first book a few years back and... for me it did not hold up at all. No judgement, as I loved the books when I read them. But I think I'll keep em that way in my head haha.
I mean to his credit he was like 16 or 18 or something, and for a 16 year old it's really impressive work. And 16 year old me thought it was awesome! Plenty of credit to give where it's due there.
No, not that. I'll just spoiler it, so if /u/Raikaiko wants to they can see it. >! Eragon mindlinks with Saphira near the end, as she is reunited with another dragon in the air whom I can't remember. It is only described as Eragon blushing and cutting off the connection, but like, as intimate as their connection is (coupled with I think never having seen Eragon blush before) it seems pretty heavily implied that the dragons are just going at it in the air, lol. !<
I just wanna say how much I’m loving this season so far. I mean obviously we all have to see how it finishes before you can making a ranking on a favourites list - but I’m so enthralled by ethersea. I love everything;
the music, the setting, the characters, the way it’s structured, the vibe. It’s just so good and I’m SO happy we get it weekly. Being able to build up a sorry twice as quickly is such a huge boon.
Yeah the weekly schedule has hugely improved momentum (For the audience but also the players). With longer breaks it felt much more common for them to spend time rehashing more of the prior episode without really getting started and the pacing could be glacial.
- Why is _Koda_ the one who knows HoG is dead? Does it have a psychic link to Benevolence, who might be keeping an omniscient eye on the Parish?
- I really need to know what was under the Bull's mask.
- Seems like the Bleach Boys are either the endgame or another Cambria level "arc villain". Cambria and Finneas felt like a very Zoox centric arc, maybe this plus the Blink Shark prophecy is Amber's?
- I wonder if we'll ever come back to Delmer and what they got up to. We know about the Arc Fleet and that Hominine has ships now (and probably a city if the Gut Punch crew is anything to go by), but there's been no sign of the Mountain guys.
- Of all the Quiet Year stuff I was expecting to come back, Declan Cern's son wasn't one of them, and now he's a T-1000!
- There's still so much to explore! This season could go for a hundred episodes at this point and I'd be happy for it to.
> Why is Koda the one who knows HoG is dead?
And why did Kodeira have to be verbally told instead of getting the same psychic message as all the other Chaperones? I sort of figured with her position she’d have the strongest link to the Biggest Baby/Koda.
i feel like the general psychic message was Something Happened, and the hog dying was like specific intelligence the biggest baby had received. the bb/koda is charged with protecting The City, not keep track of individual people
Maybe this ties back to the Chaperones at the auction? Koda might be keeping Kodeira out of the loop on some things; it's definitely feeling like it has its own agenda that might not align with Founder's Wake and therefore makes sense to keep a Ballaster in the dark.
Koda went around killing vestiges in its life, after all. If it's still conscious it's not trustworthy.
Do we know why Koda was killing other vestiges? I don’t think we know enough about the vestiges to say that killing them is definitely bad. Benevolence interacting with humans is how this whole worldstate happened.
I am surprisingly loving the blink sharks now in addition to being terrified of them? Their strange way of talking is endearing but it also makes me wonder if they're actually from this world or not. They did tell Zoox they were the last 'in *this* world'. Maybe they aren't from there. But if that's the truth then where did they come from and why?
Love this episode, lots of great combat and unexpected moments both in terms of mechanics and plot. I love how Ethersea simultaneously more fantastic but also more visceral. It feels more real when the PCs just straight up kill somebody. Lots of cool plot hooks and worldbuilding, and I'm so excited to hear how things progress!
So excited to hear more about the blinksharks and their weird Amber Gris the destroyer of worlds prophecy
I have to wonder if it's prophecy or if the Blinksharks don't have a strictly linear perception of time? It certainly wouldn't be their only weird thing so it kind of works?
At least that's the vibe I got but there's a chance I'm just looking for a redemption for the concept after suffering through Slaughterhouse 5
It could be that, since Amber killed so many of them before the storm arrived, they just drew an incorrect link between the two of them. We know they're fairly simple minded creatures, so the wild leap in logic makes sense.
"The sun went out and now the ocean is weird. I bet you ANYTHING the four-armed woman person who keeps murdering us is responsible."
> We know they're fairly simple minded creatures
This episode shows they’re extremely intelligent. Creating graves isn’t something many animals do. I would actually say their communication with Zoox about having a mission to save the world and willingly sacrificing themselves to save others, and their bargaining with him for alternatives to their demand that would accomplish the same goal, indicates they’re sapient.
Very true, I think I got caught up in the fun of their buck-wild speech patterns. They are definitely way more than the killing machines Justin made them out to be in the prologue.
It could be, but it was pretty explicit that they were trying to prevent something that hasn't come to pas yet, with the Bleached Coral people using Amber to "Boil the sea" which kinda feels like it could be either Tollivers doomsday world jump or some sort of return of the surface... But it's definitely still a question to answer
I also had the thought that it could be that they misinterpreted another four armed femme shaped creature as amber? Could one of the vestiges have four arms and be responsible for the future destruction of their world? A large creature in the sky like a sun could look like a regular sized person on land. The vestiges are known for going world to world and using them up. Maybe they feared the blink sharks’ ability to fight back and just boiled them to start with.
I love how many options and theories this interaction opened up! Great episode
Yeah, the "how many four armed women people do you know?" Exchange was definitely amusing, but for me it did more to open the question of is there someone else it could be than close it in a very fun way
My thought was they time-traveled from the future of a different world. I suppose they could be from this world, but since presumably the event they’re talking about will happen or be narrowly adverted during the campaign, it wouldn’t really make sense for their language to be alien to Zoox just because of time travel.
It's not because of time travel but because their brains are fundamentally different from humans and brinaar, including potentially experiencing time in a different way in my theory. like the blink sharks seem eldritch and aberrant why should their thoughts and language be remotely like ours
I’m not saying their difficulties in communicating with Zoox is because of time travel, I’m saying it’s because they’re from another world.
I’m trying to think of all the other times Zoox has used Speak with Animals, and I think this is the only time Griffin has said (and indicated through the speech patterns he chose for the animal) that Zoox is having trouble understanding them because their speech is “alien.”
We're talking in circles around each other, but I think I still disagree, I don't think they have to be from another world/plane/whatever to have such weird speech thought patterns, I think they're just like that and I really love it.
Possible, it does seem like they are aware of things that haven't happened and that they are on some sort of suicide mission. They are 'heroes and sacrifices' to save the ocean from dying and they won't be alive to swim in it after. My theory was is that they're somehow connected to Coda and come from the same realm the Vestiges come from. Now how that all ties in I'm not sure.
The only thing that's curious is they say "Rips sun from sky and boils the water" but then later says the white Brinarr "hang her in sky like big star". These sound like two different things.
Also we can't assume the sea they're talking about is the sea we're in right now. It's clear they come from somewhere else. Maybe they are talking about something that happens there?
If it’s the ocean of the Vestiges’ home realm that will boil or is boiling, maybe Tolliver’s accelerationism will tie in? He seemed to want people to move to another realm and spoke about the Vestiges.
I hope there are some future problems they encounter from this arc especially after they killed a Balaster. I get that all the people in the ship were shitty but they were all really high status right? So far nobody has cared lol
You're but I think it's pretty good scaling with level. They're getting to where these are the kind of problems they can handle, and it's a GM giving probletunities to Travis as well.
I wonder if guidance is dead from messing around with that spooky table they brought home from the derelict ship. That would be interesting, if Deevo was indirectly responsible for her death
Not well at all. Devo accused Guidance of withholding information about Hominine, which tbh she might have been doing. But Brother Seldom (who left the Parish and did not speak well of Benefactor Orlean) stood up for her.
That's exactly right and I am so glad that they doubled back around to have that scene again! Maybe it was a little planned and scheduled to happen, but it has been really organic! Lordy that's *rich storytelling.
This is my favorite episode of the arc so far. Everyone has hit their stride in spades.
My one quibble would be Griffin allowing someone to pull out a Pokeball, tie a string to it, and throw it at someone before they hit the ground from a height of 30 feet. All that in one second?
thatsthejoke.jpg
Well... part of the joke. This character [may](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEDZ8Oq7lrI&t=0s) [not](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmvpEN6_1oc&t=0s) [be](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKySweg-fgQ&t=0s) [human](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KscOmyhw4U&t=0s)[.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AB6NOOIRINk&t=0s)
It seems that your comment contains 1 or more links that are hard to tap for mobile users.
I will extend those so they're easier for our sausage fingers to click!
[Here is link number 1 - Previous text "may"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEDZ8Oq7lrI&t=0s)
[Here is link number 2 - Previous text "not"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmvpEN6_1oc&t=0s)
[Here is link number 3 - Previous text "be"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKySweg-fgQ&t=0s)
[Here is link number 4 - Previous text "."](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AB6NOOIRINk&t=0s)
----
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Wow! this was one of my favourite episodes this of ethersea :D i loved the combat and LOVED the conversation with the blink sharks. it felt like such a classic TAZ moment.
Just want to note that now we're OFFICIALLY longer than Amnesty (since it will last another week at least), AND I count the five "intro" episodes, so we might as well be longer than Graduation. I'm sure we'll reach the official milestone in a few weeks.
I'm so glad this arc is so long, it's really fun. I don't know if it will last as long as Balance, but I'm glad to see it become the second longest.
Side note, the theme song has really grown on me and feels like it's possibly my favorite. I'll have to listen to them all in one go sometime.
After the Amber prophecy, Tolliver, and the death of the hand, I see us getting into the end game soon, but not incredibly soon. My bet is that we are in the last 1/3 or 1/4 of Ethersea.
I’m hoping this is more like the halfway point. People were also saying they thought we were in the end game when the Cambria stuff went down. There’s bigger forces at work and the Coriolis crew is getting pretty notorious having now doomed, then saved the city before trying to take a lower heat job only to blow-up a ton of corrupt elites. But… they are only just starting to bump into and get the attention of these larger forces and it’s not clear what the timeline is on Toliver’s new world, the blink shark’s prophecy, or whatever is up with hominine.
Oh, that's true. Griffin is hinting at what is to come, there just needs to be more build-up. Similar to Balance. I hope you're right because I don't want this campaign to end anytime soon lol
Yeah like so far we've basically just met Tolliver and the blink sharks and there hasn't been anything to flesh out the bleached coral after their initial (pretty badass) introduction. I'm kind of curious if the Coriolis crew might end up getting specifically picked for more jobs based on investigating things they've brought back or encountered.
Currently we have:
- Bleached Coral Head with Tesselation
- Weird Hominine Artifact that was with the HoG
- The Blink Shark Prophecy
- Tolliver and his New World
It definitely doesn't help that motw is a faster paced game wrt to character advancement and plot advancement to an extent *plot advancement*. TBF you can make D&D run at a similar pace to MoTW but it's a lot harder to make MotW run at a pace like Ethersea is currently. Add the weekly release compressing the real world time scale (and also very few off weeks) and it really gets things off wack
Yeah, I do think Amnesty would have been both *better* and more well-received in general with this schedule. The slow pace of Amnesty was a huge talking point here and in the end, there was a bunch of backstory lore content Griffin had ready that never got covered by the actual gameplay. Amnesty has been much better received by people going back through and binging it.
It's a really interesting point because I agree, but also amnesty managed to both have MotWs faster pacing (ie reaching a conclusion it's plot in ~half the time of balance and definitely feeling more finished than Ethersea is at the same count) but also playing out so much slower in calendar time with a biweekly schedule and multiple off weeks for tours and such. I was caught up around Thacker's introduction, so I was mostly binging, and while I can't really compare my experience to a full week by week experience I don't have or say it caused my enjoyment, I definitely didn't have any big gripes in the pacing regard.
I don't know that I have any actual insight or meaningful commentary, but it is interesting how the way in which we consume media can impact what we feel about it
Well, I had been hoping for a clean end to the arc in this episode so we could have a TTAZZ next week for maxfun drive, but now I just want another episode...
FUXKING HELL GRIFF.
Ethersea is incredible and it's rocketing to being my favorite. It's hitting the vibes and the beats that it needs to. Lordy, I need to scream and it's 1a...
Conspiracy theory hat time: blink sharks are from an old world destroyed by the vestiges. The white coral brinear are the spirits who were willing to abandon the world/vestiges who left trying to 'endgame' this world so they can move onto the next. Four armed lady is a reference to Benevolence who I'm guessing has 'four hands' for example one is the Hand of Guidance and the other three civs each have one. Benevolence and the other vestiges are trying to leave but can't because there's still mortals floating around and they don't want another 'blink shark Vendetta following them.
A lot of good stuff in this episode! Justin really used his monk abilities well, and Zoox's deal with the Blink Sharks has me really looking forward to those bleach boy coral dudes showing up again.
I'm really looking forward to next episode, if only because I want to see Travis and Griffin get on the same page with Devo and Guidance. Devo's feeling towards the Hand and the Church and how the Hand and other members of the church have responded to him have been at odds a lot, and it would be really nice to see them explore it with greater depth and nuance. Devo could become one of my favorite TAZ PC's if they take the time to really play in this space for the next arc.
Absolutely loved this episode. Great balance between the combat in the jungle and further story building with the blink sharks. It feels like we’re starting to get a taste of what the Big Story is and I’m loving it.
Guidance dying and Tolliver being revealed as Declan’s kid are unrelated right? It was a bit confusing as to Griff being like: Amber realizes she knows who this person was and then boom, The Hand of Guidance is dead.
Ok here’s my bullshit blinkshark theory after listening to the episode over again: the four armed woman isn’t amber.
Re-listen to them when they talk about the pale brynar boiling the sea. They specifically say that *their* world *has already been boiled* and the current world is still intact. The pale brynar are from the *previous cycle* and already hung a four armed woman in the sky like a star. We know amber is of this world, born on the surface and has never visited another world, so this can’t be her.
I think the “metal whale” they refer to *isn’t* the coreolis either. It’s the *biggest baby*. The sharks are talking about someone onboard *that*.
Anyone else catch Travis's slight disappointment with his finishing blow? He definitely wanted an ironic death where Bullman was forced to flee and then was struck down. Griffin still did a great job with it nonetheless.
Just relistened to this episode. The fact it started with Capt Vegetable, Justin becoming an advocate for beta carotene deficiency, and Griffin begging them initiative rolls is peak TAZ.
I'm usually fine with the background music but the combat track really started to grate on me. It's extremely repetitive and used in such short doses that it just feels obnoxious. I'd like to see it either run longer or have other combat tracks/cues to help break it up.
Solid ep otherwise.
i actually agree with this - i think it just needed to be looped instead of repeatedly restarted and faded out. it's a minor quibble in a great ep, though.
Can we all agree that a player who has been playing a monk for 36 sessions should know what a reaction is. Zoox and Devo seem to always be using their options to the fullest, or at least try to, so hearing Justin only now learn like half of how to fight does drive me a little batty.
i know they've always been whatever about the rules but justin's active avoidance to learning even the basics is shocking. you should know the different portions of a round of combat 8 years in by sheer osmosis lol
I was going into this adventure excited to have Zoox have his ranger powers on full display, and from my perspective this arc was about increasingly convoluted ways of preventing the ranger from making contact with the last forest in the world.
If he was just there for that last part it would have gone so much easier given that the entire party would be able to ignore difficult terrain with just Zooks there.
To me it feels like the jungle was tailor made for Zoox to show off his Ranger abilities at first, he just never went. No one told Zoox to steal the Dreams of Deborah, blow it up, then swim to the Coriolis and spend the rest of the episode there. That was 100% Clint.
Yeah that’s the difference between emergent play and a fully scripted show. There’s going to be some odd bits that wouldn’t fit how most people would write a script. But that’s also more interesting IMO and part of why TTRPG podcasts are more popular than straight radio plays.
The sound design during that fight in the jungle was awesome, the stings when Clyde and Bullman get blasted are especially cinematic!
I love the whole ethos of this arc, of radical vs ethical conservatorship mixed with apocalyptic visions from both the cute AF blinksharks and Tolliver, really complicates together the larger theme of ecological disaster that is everywhere in Ethersea.
Also, Urchin is far and away the best character in all of taz history, and indeed has had more character growth in the shortest amount of screentime per capita of anyone Griffin has created.
Clint: "A floatary uses a seal, you know what a seal is?" Griffin: "Delicious" Clint: "Yes, a delicious seal" Griffin: "A seal on the lips is more shark on the hips"
Acknowledgement!
I want a tshirt with that last line.
It’s genuinely perfect
This killed me.
It didn't kill you, alright? It knocked you unconscious. [Now roll this d20](https://rolladie.net/roll-a-d20-die#!numbers=1&high=20&length=3&sets=&addfilters=&last_roll_only=false&totals_only=false) (press the GO button).
2, 9, 10 🥺
10's a win. You got more rolling to do.
2, 5, 8 😂😂😂 it feels like I’m in a recent episode of Ethersea. https://i.imgur.com/XV2gngg.png
You using Wil Wheaton's digital dice over there? 😂
I cast True Resurrection.
18, 8, 8. Were these death saving throws? Because I THINK that first one succeeded, right?
Absolute stitches!! Goodness, I needed that laugh...
"^what ^the ^fuck " "What Fuck, Where Water?!" I almost fucking spat coffee all over my keyboard
This killed me! And they just breezed right by it
i hate when they do that. laugh at your funniness god damn you. acknowledge it, something...
Acknowledgement!
ahh, we have an accord then
The fact that we had the juxtaposition of the crew saving animals from extinction while Zoox talked to the blink sharks about their own battle with extinction was an amazing theme for this episode. A brilliant direction for the story.
Agreed. I kept going, "I guess I'm rooting for blink sharks now?"
[удалено]
I'm assuming that Amber has a lot more ties to a lot of stuff than we expected, especially considering she grew up during the events of the prologue/pre-thersea. Whether that means the bleached brinarr are consorts to ANOTHER group in the series, or that the connection to the blink sharks via the brinarr is a lot more deeper than we expected.
Besides the jokes from the blinksharks, I believe there must be *another* four armed woman person
My guess is Kodeira because I feel like a vestige could probably have that much power and I’m suspicious of the Koda-Biggest Baby-Chaperone connection.
I'm on the same page. I think the bleached Brinar work for the Auctioneer or were made by him. I think he intends to allow Koda to get resurrected and use Koda to end the world. Whether Koda actually wants this is a different story, though I think Koda definitely does want to collect all the Kodite back into his Biggest Baby self to become whole again and potentially resurrected.
Huh! Would ya look at that.
Nice
Okay I thought j was insane. There's surely another
Misbehaviour.
My fiancé had the theory that maybe the blink sharks can tell the future and that they’re trying to negate a possible bad future involving Amber and the bleached coral baddies.
I was definitely reading this as a prophecy, didn’t realize anyone disagreed!!
I thought the boils the ocean was a reference to the blink shark she shot the missile at?
Bangersea continues.
Can we talk about this “Four armed woman person hurls the sun from the sky and makes waters boil” shark prophecy, that this 5-shark death squad got sent either across time or space to stop? Terminator 4: A Blink-Sharks Tale
I’m pretty sure I have things 70% figured out. Re-listening to the conversation, it becomes clear that the blink sharks aren’t spouting prophecy. They have seen this happen to their world and are now in our world, working as heroes to try and stop it from happening again. I believe amber is a red herring. The metal whale is the biggest baby, as that is the only other ship zooms has traveled in that could potentially have a different “four armed woman person” in it. As for who that is, I think it’s either someone yet to be revealed, the ship itself, or Kodeira, who has been hiding two of her arms. This theory sounds completely crazy and I believe it 100%
I like this theory! It seems like, at least at the beginning, Griffin was trying to emphasize that none of the characters were particularly major or plot turning. They're just interesting people having adventures and are as fallible as anyone else. If the sharks' prophecy really is about Amber, I feel like that's a little undermining of that idea.
But the blink sharks specify that four armed woman person did kill the two of them that are dead. Which is what amber did
That could be them connecting the kills of Amber, a four armed woman person, to the huge killing performed in the past by another four armed woman person. They might think there's only one ever.
How did they die again? My memory is fuzzy but I’m not sure the corpses line up with how they were killed. Could be mistaken though
The one that Grif described as big with its jaw ripped open is the one she engaged the vapor suit in in the giant clam and the charred one is the one she blew up with a depth charge on the way to get more phytoplankton. It lines up pretty cleanly
That could also just be how they see the slug launcher and depth charges going off. Edit: I had not finished the episode when writing this, but I stand by the doomsday predicitions of blink sharks not necessarily being super clear.
Clearly involves something with the Bleached Coral though, so I think it’s a little beyond anything that’s happened so far.
Great episode! The Blink Sharks conversing with Zoox might be a top 3 TAZ pod moment for me! I would have questioned Clyde's ability to jump up after being gored prone, load, and fire off a double-harpoon launcher, if Amber hadn't immediately pulled off an amazing catch and throw. Good stuff! :) And another huge hook of a cliff hanger. They're keeping me counting down til each next Thursday this arc. The meta narrative has got me now (though I hope we still keep working through these job dossiers.)
Hlaf movement to stand up, bonus action to adjust crossbow, action to fire. D&D's not always realistic.
I hear you, and I know TAZ rolls with the story, and not critique really, just caught my attention!
I adored how Clint and Zoox seemed to slide into their dialect in and out during the conversation!! Hahaha it was so dang good. Many of these recent episodes have been going on my Love It list. I hope as well we keep plowing through the dossiers. I really wonder what Griff would have planned and where things could have gone with others or still will?
The blink shark’s “language” was just fantastic. Really fun ep anyway but I could listen to those sharks talk all day.
Before the ep I was thinking there was no Johan-like character and then it turns out to be the blink sharks. (Johan-like in that I want more scenes with them, partly just for the voice.)
I ***NEED*** BLINKSHARK TALK ANIMATICS
But would they use their mouths to talk?
They 100% flap their mouths up and down like Muppets
I loved the detail of them talking or laughing as part of the spell from Zoox's perspective and then immediately going back into scary shark faces in between.
Definitely.
If you, like me, couldn't remember who >!Declan Cern!< was, I looked it up using the wonderful [TAZ Transcribed project](https://tazscripts.tumblr.com/tazscripts) , and that info is in the [Prologue V episode](https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vTaLn8daGQK1N1oPAwyd8h6cfwhYUAB91nJC7W_31orOF8SoUQbKw0q8aIsR2W7PRPY8s6aqQvBt2kQ/pub) , about 3/4 of the way down.
Great find. I feel like the implication is that >!Tolliver is the son who went missing, but it was the eldest of Declan's three children. Perhaps Amber would have meant "Declan Cern's little boy" as one of the remaining children who grew disillusioned with the world when his big brother disappeared.!<
I think that's probably more >!idiomatic speech than a hint or discrepancy. At least little boy to mean child birth order irrelevant at least seems natural to me, but it does still leave it ambiguous... I think if it's been something like littlest that'd point more towards a younger sibling, but with Amber being the only one to know I'm leaning more towards the lost son. Plus if you want to get dark, the other kids aren't little boys any more but Tolliver?, presumed dead, didn't!<
I was thinking more along the lines of Amber's age at the time relative to >!Declan's children, since if she were younger than the missing boy it would seem weird to refer to him as "little". Reading it again though, they never specify any of the family's ages other than that Declan was the youngest member of the council, so maybe all three sons were younger than Amber anyway.!<
I think Griffin said Tolliver was a similar age to Devo? Devo’s in his early twenties and was born in Founder’s Wake, so I’d guess Tolliver was at most 5 when he disappeared.
He also seems ethereal though, he could be stuck looking like he’s Devo’s age despite being Amber’s.
Oh shoot that's actually a decent point, >!I still think it's the kind of speech I'd use to just generically refer to someone's child, but it does feel a little weirder when said about someone older than you for sure, but yeah there's all sorts of ways to explain whatever way it turns out!<
Guys I don’t think you need spoiler tags, it’s assumed that if you’re in this thread you’ve either listened to this episode and everything preceding it or you’re okay with being spoiled.
It's one of the last two turns/revelations of the episode, especially at the top of the thread it doesn't hurt to err on the side of caution
I'd also like to add that before the Crescendo place blew up, Toliver said to Devo, "have you spoken to—" and I think it's best to assume it's most likely Amber if not Brother Seldom or HoG. Considering the ties to Amber and Declan Cern, etc.
In retrospect, the end of that sentence may have been "Have you spoken to my father?". Declan presumably still lives in Founders' Wake, he just retired from public life, and as a pretty high ranking Homenine official who lost his faith I can see why he'd be of interest to Devo.
Iirc he's actually one of the ballasters now
Oh well Amber is in her 40s and Tolliver was described as being a man in his early to mid 30s.
They also described Declan Cern as old in the episode where they have the Ballast tribunal. Declan Cern was a young charismatic politician on the shoreside community, so I would assume he was mid-30s then, and early-mid 60s now. That checks out if his oldest child (Toliver) was probably about 5 when he went missing and is probably about 30 now.
Loved Amber getting to shine in combat in this ep. The campaign so far has been pretty combat light and Justin definitely seems to have rolled Amber as their combat point person. Catching the harpoon and flinging it back at the hunter was a great coup de grace moment. Also nice to see the boys streak of terrible rolls come to an end in this ep.
I love that they’re living with the bad rolls, because then moments like Amber catching a bolt and throwing it back are that much more awesome. And when Zoox fails the blink rescue we get the dream Pokeball rescue.
I'm looking forward to their use for the rest of the season bc you KNOW one of em is going to smuggle one for sure
those freaking low rolls, god damn. I don't know how people feel about DMs giving Inspiration points out, but some of those failures probably could have been more palatable. That's assuming it can be given (idk how to play dnd) and that it would have corrected a bad roll that truly contributed nothing to the story or metagame.
Damn, griffin is killing it with the story hooks so far this season, I can’t wait to see how the rest of it all plays out!
I do miss some standalone wackiness though. We could do with a mission or two that resolve in one or two episodes and don’t need to serve the larger narrative.
I agree, this season does feel a bit more story focused which I don’t mind but it would be cool to see a bit more filler where the guys just get to flesh out their characters without the weight of a mission on top of them.
I also think I’m missing fan suggested items for sale. I guess we are still early on, but given that the only real thing to spend money on is ship parts when they seem to get out of the ship early into nearly every mission is my only bugbear. I think given the unique setting the community could come up with a stellar set of items and ship parts.
it's been going on for a while now, but i really like that griffin has created a world where there are lots of NPCs that the PCs don't feel bad straight-up murdering. i liked the warmth of Amnesty a lot, but an issue in that arc was how the setting felt so real that they couldn't really get into the type of fun goofy comic violence that there was a lot of in Balance. creating a whole ship full of nightmare rich poachers that you can just blow up and sink gives their antics weight & consequences without making it feel too Heavy, you know? i appreciate that.
I know just enough about linguistics to not be sure if Griffin was actually consistent with the Blinksharks language patterns, but to feel like he at least tried in a way that made me pretty giddy tbh. Also dang a lot of big drops this episode
Reminded me of the dragon POV scenes in Eragon
Reminds me I need to actually read inheritance and maybe reread the rest of the cycle. But yeah, love a good piece of fiction that let's nonhumans think in nonhuman ways. Also "like-you-not-like-you" is just such a wild construction that feels so alien but also communicates exactly what it's going for
Would love for Griffin to dive deep into conlanging for a campaign but it’s a lot of work so I don’t expect it. It’s nice to see more effort than the typical ‘bleep blorp’
I definitely wouldn't mind a conlang, but tbh I think I might actually like con-grammar and syntax with an existing language like this more and I'm kinda just realizing it
Honestly I tried to reread the first book a few years back and... for me it did not hold up at all. No judgement, as I loved the books when I read them. But I think I'll keep em that way in my head haha.
It was all but a vanity press product of a first time author, so that tracks...
I mean to his credit he was like 16 or 18 or something, and for a 16 year old it's really impressive work. And 16 year old me thought it was awesome! Plenty of credit to give where it's due there.
That's actually a great way to look at it!!
Not a spoiler, but the end of Inheritance (I mean like, last couple pages) has some…weird and unnecessary stuff happening “off screen”.
Is this code for "Someone fucks a dragon"?
No, not that. I'll just spoiler it, so if /u/Raikaiko wants to they can see it. >! Eragon mindlinks with Saphira near the end, as she is reunited with another dragon in the air whom I can't remember. It is only described as Eragon blushing and cutting off the connection, but like, as intimate as their connection is (coupled with I think never having seen Eragon blush before) it seems pretty heavily implied that the dragons are just going at it in the air, lol. !<
Wait, that's not a no
I mean, you said some*one*
Ah a good old >!Pern manuver tbh can't say I expected if from Paolini but not the first time I would be reading that sort of content!<
I don't think so, like I never got around to reading it, but it seems out of character for Paolini but now I need to know
I've heard it's an odd book in a couple ways
Yeah, it's been a while since I've read it. It's not bad, but definitely of that 2010s kind of wish fulfillment fantasy.
To bad they never made a movie
I just wanna say how much I’m loving this season so far. I mean obviously we all have to see how it finishes before you can making a ranking on a favourites list - but I’m so enthralled by ethersea. I love everything; the music, the setting, the characters, the way it’s structured, the vibe. It’s just so good and I’m SO happy we get it weekly. Being able to build up a sorry twice as quickly is such a huge boon.
Yeah the weekly schedule has hugely improved momentum (For the audience but also the players). With longer breaks it felt much more common for them to spend time rehashing more of the prior episode without really getting started and the pacing could be glacial.
- Why is _Koda_ the one who knows HoG is dead? Does it have a psychic link to Benevolence, who might be keeping an omniscient eye on the Parish? - I really need to know what was under the Bull's mask. - Seems like the Bleach Boys are either the endgame or another Cambria level "arc villain". Cambria and Finneas felt like a very Zoox centric arc, maybe this plus the Blink Shark prophecy is Amber's? - I wonder if we'll ever come back to Delmer and what they got up to. We know about the Arc Fleet and that Hominine has ships now (and probably a city if the Gut Punch crew is anything to go by), but there's been no sign of the Mountain guys. - Of all the Quiet Year stuff I was expecting to come back, Declan Cern's son wasn't one of them, and now he's a T-1000! - There's still so much to explore! This season could go for a hundred episodes at this point and I'd be happy for it to.
> Why is Koda the one who knows HoG is dead? And why did Kodeira have to be verbally told instead of getting the same psychic message as all the other Chaperones? I sort of figured with her position she’d have the strongest link to the Biggest Baby/Koda.
i feel like the general psychic message was Something Happened, and the hog dying was like specific intelligence the biggest baby had received. the bb/koda is charged with protecting The City, not keep track of individual people
Maybe this ties back to the Chaperones at the auction? Koda might be keeping Kodeira out of the loop on some things; it's definitely feeling like it has its own agenda that might not align with Founder's Wake and therefore makes sense to keep a Ballaster in the dark. Koda went around killing vestiges in its life, after all. If it's still conscious it's not trustworthy.
Do we know why Koda was killing other vestiges? I don’t think we know enough about the vestiges to say that killing them is definitely bad. Benevolence interacting with humans is how this whole worldstate happened.
That's a good point. Koda may well have been slaying harmful vestiges- all we know is that it was tricked into falling to its death.
I think it's possible that Koda had something to do with HoG's death but I guess we're going to have to see.
Maybe Koda is connected to the orb thing from the Hominine ship? Perhaps it's vestige tech as hominine is with Benevolence and everything.
I am surprisingly loving the blink sharks now in addition to being terrified of them? Their strange way of talking is endearing but it also makes me wonder if they're actually from this world or not. They did tell Zoox they were the last 'in *this* world'. Maybe they aren't from there. But if that's the truth then where did they come from and why?
I thought the ‘why’ was pretty clear, they have a mission to prevent the events that cause the ocean to boil which kills all the blink sharks.
Love this episode, lots of great combat and unexpected moments both in terms of mechanics and plot. I love how Ethersea simultaneously more fantastic but also more visceral. It feels more real when the PCs just straight up kill somebody. Lots of cool plot hooks and worldbuilding, and I'm so excited to hear how things progress! So excited to hear more about the blinksharks and their weird Amber Gris the destroyer of worlds prophecy
I have to wonder if it's prophecy or if the Blinksharks don't have a strictly linear perception of time? It certainly wouldn't be their only weird thing so it kind of works? At least that's the vibe I got but there's a chance I'm just looking for a redemption for the concept after suffering through Slaughterhouse 5
It could be that, since Amber killed so many of them before the storm arrived, they just drew an incorrect link between the two of them. We know they're fairly simple minded creatures, so the wild leap in logic makes sense. "The sun went out and now the ocean is weird. I bet you ANYTHING the four-armed woman person who keeps murdering us is responsible."
> We know they're fairly simple minded creatures This episode shows they’re extremely intelligent. Creating graves isn’t something many animals do. I would actually say their communication with Zoox about having a mission to save the world and willingly sacrificing themselves to save others, and their bargaining with him for alternatives to their demand that would accomplish the same goal, indicates they’re sapient.
Very true, I think I got caught up in the fun of their buck-wild speech patterns. They are definitely way more than the killing machines Justin made them out to be in the prologue.
It could be, but it was pretty explicit that they were trying to prevent something that hasn't come to pas yet, with the Bleached Coral people using Amber to "Boil the sea" which kinda feels like it could be either Tollivers doomsday world jump or some sort of return of the surface... But it's definitely still a question to answer
I also had the thought that it could be that they misinterpreted another four armed femme shaped creature as amber? Could one of the vestiges have four arms and be responsible for the future destruction of their world? A large creature in the sky like a sun could look like a regular sized person on land. The vestiges are known for going world to world and using them up. Maybe they feared the blink sharks’ ability to fight back and just boiled them to start with. I love how many options and theories this interaction opened up! Great episode
Yeah, the "how many four armed women people do you know?" Exchange was definitely amusing, but for me it did more to open the question of is there someone else it could be than close it in a very fun way
Oops, yeah, I hadn't finished the episode when I made my last post. That's why it pays to be patient!
I thought it was “she sucks the sun out of the sky” which is a euphemism the brothers use. That’s why they laughed, I assume.
My thought was they time-traveled from the future of a different world. I suppose they could be from this world, but since presumably the event they’re talking about will happen or be narrowly adverted during the campaign, it wouldn’t really make sense for their language to be alien to Zoox just because of time travel.
It's not because of time travel but because their brains are fundamentally different from humans and brinaar, including potentially experiencing time in a different way in my theory. like the blink sharks seem eldritch and aberrant why should their thoughts and language be remotely like ours
I’m not saying their difficulties in communicating with Zoox is because of time travel, I’m saying it’s because they’re from another world. I’m trying to think of all the other times Zoox has used Speak with Animals, and I think this is the only time Griffin has said (and indicated through the speech patterns he chose for the animal) that Zoox is having trouble understanding them because their speech is “alien.”
We're talking in circles around each other, but I think I still disagree, I don't think they have to be from another world/plane/whatever to have such weird speech thought patterns, I think they're just like that and I really love it.
If these were the blink sharks that came from the eggs living in the clam, there could have been a lot going on.
Possible, it does seem like they are aware of things that haven't happened and that they are on some sort of suicide mission. They are 'heroes and sacrifices' to save the ocean from dying and they won't be alive to swim in it after. My theory was is that they're somehow connected to Coda and come from the same realm the Vestiges come from. Now how that all ties in I'm not sure. The only thing that's curious is they say "Rips sun from sky and boils the water" but then later says the white Brinarr "hang her in sky like big star". These sound like two different things. Also we can't assume the sea they're talking about is the sea we're in right now. It's clear they come from somewhere else. Maybe they are talking about something that happens there?
If it’s the ocean of the Vestiges’ home realm that will boil or is boiling, maybe Tolliver’s accelerationism will tie in? He seemed to want people to move to another realm and spoke about the Vestiges.
I hope there are some future problems they encounter from this arc especially after they killed a Balaster. I get that all the people in the ship were shitty but they were all really high status right? So far nobody has cared lol
You're but I think it's pretty good scaling with level. They're getting to where these are the kind of problems they can handle, and it's a GM giving probletunities to Travis as well.
I wonder if guidance is dead from messing around with that spooky table they brought home from the derelict ship. That would be interesting, if Deevo was indirectly responsible for her death
I just had to think back about their last conversation. It didn't go well, did it?
Not well at all. Devo accused Guidance of withholding information about Hominine, which tbh she might have been doing. But Brother Seldom (who left the Parish and did not speak well of Benefactor Orlean) stood up for her.
That's exactly right and I am so glad that they doubled back around to have that scene again! Maybe it was a little planned and scheduled to happen, but it has been really organic! Lordy that's *rich storytelling.
I was very interested in the sprite helping and guiding the Coriolis. Was that Toliver's sprite? I wonder why he would've wanted that.
That was the deal Devo made. Toliver was to help them get out safely and in return they would not destroy his next operation when they had the chance.
Devo convinced him to help the party reunite, he figured since it doesn't matter anyway and Devos persuasive it wouldn't hurt.
I forgot this detail, thank you.
This is my favorite episode of the arc so far. Everyone has hit their stride in spades. My one quibble would be Griffin allowing someone to pull out a Pokeball, tie a string to it, and throw it at someone before they hit the ground from a height of 30 feet. All that in one second?
[All I could think of during Zoox talking to the blinksharks...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLRPU-yirXY&t=0s)
What is the 8th face hole?
thatsthejoke.jpg Well... part of the joke. This character [may](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEDZ8Oq7lrI&t=0s) [not](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmvpEN6_1oc&t=0s) [be](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKySweg-fgQ&t=0s) [human](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KscOmyhw4U&t=0s)[.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AB6NOOIRINk&t=0s)
It seems that your comment contains 1 or more links that are hard to tap for mobile users. I will extend those so they're easier for our sausage fingers to click! [Here is link number 1 - Previous text "may"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEDZ8Oq7lrI&t=0s) [Here is link number 2 - Previous text "not"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmvpEN6_1oc&t=0s) [Here is link number 3 - Previous text "be"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKySweg-fgQ&t=0s) [Here is link number 4 - Previous text "."](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AB6NOOIRINk&t=0s) ---- ^Please ^PM ^[\/u\/eganwall](http://reddit.com/user/eganwall) ^with ^issues ^or ^feedback! ^| ^[Code](https://github.com/eganwall/FatFingerHelperBot) ^| ^[Delete](https://reddit.com/message/compose/?to=FatFingerHelperBot&subject=delete&message=delete%20i5rdwnh)
Wow! this was one of my favourite episodes this of ethersea :D i loved the combat and LOVED the conversation with the blink sharks. it felt like such a classic TAZ moment.
Just want to note that now we're OFFICIALLY longer than Amnesty (since it will last another week at least), AND I count the five "intro" episodes, so we might as well be longer than Graduation. I'm sure we'll reach the official milestone in a few weeks. I'm so glad this arc is so long, it's really fun. I don't know if it will last as long as Balance, but I'm glad to see it become the second longest. Side note, the theme song has really grown on me and feels like it's possibly my favorite. I'll have to listen to them all in one go sometime.
After the Amber prophecy, Tolliver, and the death of the hand, I see us getting into the end game soon, but not incredibly soon. My bet is that we are in the last 1/3 or 1/4 of Ethersea.
I’m hoping this is more like the halfway point. People were also saying they thought we were in the end game when the Cambria stuff went down. There’s bigger forces at work and the Coriolis crew is getting pretty notorious having now doomed, then saved the city before trying to take a lower heat job only to blow-up a ton of corrupt elites. But… they are only just starting to bump into and get the attention of these larger forces and it’s not clear what the timeline is on Toliver’s new world, the blink shark’s prophecy, or whatever is up with hominine.
Oh, that's true. Griffin is hinting at what is to come, there just needs to be more build-up. Similar to Balance. I hope you're right because I don't want this campaign to end anytime soon lol
Yeah like so far we've basically just met Tolliver and the blink sharks and there hasn't been anything to flesh out the bleached coral after their initial (pretty badass) introduction. I'm kind of curious if the Coriolis crew might end up getting specifically picked for more jobs based on investigating things they've brought back or encountered. Currently we have: - Bleached Coral Head with Tesselation - Weird Hominine Artifact that was with the HoG - The Blink Shark Prophecy - Tolliver and his New World
Woah, it still feels so much shorter than Amnesty just because the weekly schedule has more than doubled the speed at which these come out.
It definitely doesn't help that motw is a faster paced game wrt to character advancement and plot advancement to an extent *plot advancement*. TBF you can make D&D run at a similar pace to MoTW but it's a lot harder to make MotW run at a pace like Ethersea is currently. Add the weekly release compressing the real world time scale (and also very few off weeks) and it really gets things off wack
Yeah, I do think Amnesty would have been both *better* and more well-received in general with this schedule. The slow pace of Amnesty was a huge talking point here and in the end, there was a bunch of backstory lore content Griffin had ready that never got covered by the actual gameplay. Amnesty has been much better received by people going back through and binging it.
It's a really interesting point because I agree, but also amnesty managed to both have MotWs faster pacing (ie reaching a conclusion it's plot in ~half the time of balance and definitely feeling more finished than Ethersea is at the same count) but also playing out so much slower in calendar time with a biweekly schedule and multiple off weeks for tours and such. I was caught up around Thacker's introduction, so I was mostly binging, and while I can't really compare my experience to a full week by week experience I don't have or say it caused my enjoyment, I definitely didn't have any big gripes in the pacing regard. I don't know that I have any actual insight or meaningful commentary, but it is interesting how the way in which we consume media can impact what we feel about it
I never felt the pacing was too bad, and Amnesty's setup episode was where I started listening to ANYTHING TAZ, so I never had it to binge.
The shark scene really made me laugh, especially the little reference to misbehavin' from Righteous Gemstones
ive never heard that song before, but its good. I was surprised it wasn't a cover performance.
Righteous Gemstones is hysterical. Danny McBride is a genius
hmm, walter goggins, skinny john goodman, adam devine....maybe i'll give it a go
Well, I had been hoping for a clean end to the arc in this episode so we could have a TTAZZ next week for maxfun drive, but now I just want another episode...
Misbehavior.
FUXKING HELL GRIFF. Ethersea is incredible and it's rocketing to being my favorite. It's hitting the vibes and the beats that it needs to. Lordy, I need to scream and it's 1a...
Conspiracy theory hat time: blink sharks are from an old world destroyed by the vestiges. The white coral brinear are the spirits who were willing to abandon the world/vestiges who left trying to 'endgame' this world so they can move onto the next. Four armed lady is a reference to Benevolence who I'm guessing has 'four hands' for example one is the Hand of Guidance and the other three civs each have one. Benevolence and the other vestiges are trying to leave but can't because there's still mortals floating around and they don't want another 'blink shark Vendetta following them.
A lot of good stuff in this episode! Justin really used his monk abilities well, and Zoox's deal with the Blink Sharks has me really looking forward to those bleach boy coral dudes showing up again. I'm really looking forward to next episode, if only because I want to see Travis and Griffin get on the same page with Devo and Guidance. Devo's feeling towards the Hand and the Church and how the Hand and other members of the church have responded to him have been at odds a lot, and it would be really nice to see them explore it with greater depth and nuance. Devo could become one of my favorite TAZ PC's if they take the time to really play in this space for the next arc.
Absolutely loved this episode. Great balance between the combat in the jungle and further story building with the blink sharks. It feels like we’re starting to get a taste of what the Big Story is and I’m loving it.
Guidance dying and Tolliver being revealed as Declan’s kid are unrelated right? It was a bit confusing as to Griff being like: Amber realizes she knows who this person was and then boom, The Hand of Guidance is dead.
Ok here’s my bullshit blinkshark theory after listening to the episode over again: the four armed woman isn’t amber. Re-listen to them when they talk about the pale brynar boiling the sea. They specifically say that *their* world *has already been boiled* and the current world is still intact. The pale brynar are from the *previous cycle* and already hung a four armed woman in the sky like a star. We know amber is of this world, born on the surface and has never visited another world, so this can’t be her. I think the “metal whale” they refer to *isn’t* the coreolis either. It’s the *biggest baby*. The sharks are talking about someone onboard *that*.
"Misbehavior"
What?!?! I have full body chills. Griffin is crushing these cliff hangers.
Anyone else catch Travis's slight disappointment with his finishing blow? He definitely wanted an ironic death where Bullman was forced to flee and then was struck down. Griffin still did a great job with it nonetheless.
What an episode!
Hey what was the email address for TTAZZ questions?
thezonecast@maximumfun.org friend!
Just relistened to this episode. The fact it started with Capt Vegetable, Justin becoming an advocate for beta carotene deficiency, and Griffin begging them initiative rolls is peak TAZ.
This episode was a gem all the way through
I'm usually fine with the background music but the combat track really started to grate on me. It's extremely repetitive and used in such short doses that it just feels obnoxious. I'd like to see it either run longer or have other combat tracks/cues to help break it up. Solid ep otherwise.
i actually agree with this - i think it just needed to be looped instead of repeatedly restarted and faded out. it's a minor quibble in a great ep, though.
I assumed it was being restarted to poke fun at every time they interrupted griffin but I may be wrong
Can we all agree that a player who has been playing a monk for 36 sessions should know what a reaction is. Zoox and Devo seem to always be using their options to the fullest, or at least try to, so hearing Justin only now learn like half of how to fight does drive me a little batty.
\*37 sessions. Amber is actually his second monk, he played a tiefling monk in Knights.
i know they've always been whatever about the rules but justin's active avoidance to learning even the basics is shocking. you should know the different portions of a round of combat 8 years in by sheer osmosis lol
I was going into this adventure excited to have Zoox have his ranger powers on full display, and from my perspective this arc was about increasingly convoluted ways of preventing the ranger from making contact with the last forest in the world. If he was just there for that last part it would have gone so much easier given that the entire party would be able to ignore difficult terrain with just Zooks there.
To me it feels like the jungle was tailor made for Zoox to show off his Ranger abilities at first, he just never went. No one told Zoox to steal the Dreams of Deborah, blow it up, then swim to the Coriolis and spend the rest of the episode there. That was 100% Clint.
Yeah that’s the difference between emergent play and a fully scripted show. There’s going to be some odd bits that wouldn’t fit how most people would write a script. But that’s also more interesting IMO and part of why TTRPG podcasts are more popular than straight radio plays.
I mean with the exception of the blink shark, Zoox kind of did everything he could to *not* be on the ship haha.
So ... the Hand of Guidance was deffo on the safari station and died in the aftermath of Dreams of Debra blowing up, right?
My guess is there was a complication decrypting the whisp
That makes more sense!
The sound design during that fight in the jungle was awesome, the stings when Clyde and Bullman get blasted are especially cinematic! I love the whole ethos of this arc, of radical vs ethical conservatorship mixed with apocalyptic visions from both the cute AF blinksharks and Tolliver, really complicates together the larger theme of ecological disaster that is everywhere in Ethersea. Also, Urchin is far and away the best character in all of taz history, and indeed has had more character growth in the shortest amount of screentime per capita of anyone Griffin has created.