Brennan Releases His True Inner Demon 

Also her "YES" at 4:07

The “oh, I’m playing beyond Legendary level?” movement

Aabria's a terrible DM, though.

1 year late but can you imagine if they one day make an animated show out of Calamity?? This moment would be so cool!

I got so fucking giddy I damn near had to pull over when I was listening to it. I had been waiting for the shoe to drop for so long - what a perfect reveal.

@@frameddonut1056i mean they are making a might nien series on top of the legend of vox machina which already scored its next season so at this point its just a question of do they go to the next campaign or do they have some quick fun on a one of movie featuring the calamity.

An amazing line, but my favorite one is when he tells Xarxes: "The difference between you and Pelor, god of the sun, is that he is slightly more humble" (paraphrasing). Telling a mortal he's more arrogant than a god is rough.

To a God, even eternity is nothing, I guess cause at that point they’re already over it and without something to do day after day it’s just another “mundane” aspect of their existence, I guess its their own version of the phrase “I don’t have enough hours in the day to get done what I want to get done”

For me, it's the "You said you would help me confront those who did this to me. Wake up Xarxes, you did this to me!"

Asmodeus' motivations really remind me of AM from "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream", I wonder if Brennan was inspired by that at all

the entire performance is.....mwhah, perfection. I sometimes dream of it.

One if the best things D&D did in their editions was to stop giving statistics for gods. They can all just do whatever the DM says.

@@elbruces Honestly that is also a great way of going about it when they give out "port folios" for the gods as well as a clear understanding of what said god's believes are, as that gives you plenty of understanding towards what type of spells and sort said god would be interested in.

Man broke the rules of Time Stop with NPC magic (PCs can’t cast time stop in a time stop, and Asmodeus can casually break that limitation)

@@elbruces If you stat it, they will kill it

hey man he's ment to be the king and rivals only the dawn so makes alot of sence- thoe i love that of like what the hottest place hell or the sun and its just that debate between the primes and the betrayers-

Yup it's like vegeta in dragon his pure heart to go supersaiyan is ego

That's some crazy ass timing, totally meant for that to happen! @_@

Voice changer

4:04

@@nickbruno1363 Maybe not. I'm able to do a similar voice naturally

I got some fucking cold chills and jumped. I'm a 30 year old man lol. I love this.

His portrayal of Asmodeus was well thought out and delivered amazingly

And this, my friend, is why the Divine Gate is a necessity. Because this is what happens when you give Gods a sandbox.

I think it works here because Xerxes let Asmodeus in. This whole beat down is a consequence to player action; he opened his heart and soul to THE devil thinking a friendship speech would heal a wound that was oozing when the universe was new. I'm not really big on the "the gods can just do w/e." style of play in D&D but in this case you paid for the ticket with plenty of opportunities to realize just what kind of ride you were signing up for.

​@@drbeard4505But they are gods. It's not like an ancient dragon, or a level 20 archmage-turned-lich. It's the literal Lord of the Hells, in full form. Gods should be basically impossible for PCs to affect, unless special circumstances occur (such as it being a fragment of the deity that the PCs are trying to send back to their realm.)

The absolute I don't even give a fuck energy of that counter spell is so good.

"You want to use magic against me? I AM MAGIC"

Yep, that’s why it’s very hard to fit godly level stats into a stat block in D&D. A FRAGMENT of Tiamat, typically considered a LESSER DEITY in comparison to some others, has 30 strength and constitution, which is literally the highest the game system is built to allow. They’re on an entirely different level.

its is the black unfathomable eons of the eldritch terror. what if i am less than the vermin that preys on an ant? what if this is one of the movers and shakers of various looms and skanes of destiny? what and who am i on the fractal infinity of endless dreams? none know. not evem the dreamer.

@@Achridian Yea. Built Different on such a fundamental level it is a horrifically unfunny joke to think a mere 4th level resilient sphere would have stopped THE LORD OF THE HELLS for even a *moment.* these things are quite literally beyond anything else on this world. No competition, not truly.

“Here’s to a future you can’t ruin.”

LITERALLY I mean I was half expecting him to say “You’re so damn lucky…” next 😅

50% of that choice was to give Lou flashbacks.😂

@@hiti6753 I'm convinced that one of Lou and Brennan's love languages in their friendship is being intentionally antagonistic to each other during campaigns.

I wonder if that is a shout-out to the idea of God being depicted as a writer in Supernatural.

@@scrapper3494 Doubtful. The idea of the gods being “writers” is not new and didn’t originate with Supernatural, and Brennan has degrees in both philosophy and screenwriting so it’s likely something he’s thought about before

Serious Joker energy.

Reminds me of Ultron almost in the delivery, I'm not sure why. Absolutely killer either way

Reminds me of the Steve buscemi line in Spy Kids…”do you ever thing God stays in Heaven in fear of what he created???”

The thing is, I think that foresight actually works against him because he's just full of dread the whole time

@@stevenboelke6661 Exactlyyyyy, IDK if it’s just me but I love seeing those kinds of things with other players/DMs. Like, for me with my home games, it’s like a little “I know your cues and it’ll kill me but I love it” kind of recognition between buds. Tis me love language

His anticipation and reactions gave me life throughout the whole series

and on top of this, Lou would likely have already been aware that a horror season of D20 was on its way and that this was even more of just a prep round

The way you articulated Lou's rePEAT is hilarious

Brennan or zerxus?

@@alexanderkazantzis8019 Zerxus.

@@alexanderkazantzis8019Pretty sure it was Xerxes.

Meanwhile, Cerrit: "Man, the group chat has been kinda quiet."

@@CrownofMischief 😂😂😂

What a weird thing to say

Lou knows when something dirty is afoot!

One is one of the most powerful beings in existence. The other is Asmodeus.

And it perfectly encapsulates what that spell means. The former, the absolute power of judgment and wrath upon the hubris of mortals. The latter, the absolute power of defiance and hope in mortal hearts in the face of impossible odds.

The algorithm works in mysterious ways! Either way, welcome! Got some fun stuff here and perhaps we shall cross paths again in the future!

Brennan is magnetic isn't he?

Brennan lee mulligan is the reason I got into dnd and storytelling in general tbh

Honestly one of the best DMing examples ever. Knowing the outcome of the story but playing to the characters weaknesses and convictions, and then giving the player a choice that only now makes all the sense in world. Its like railroading with style that only a professional story teller can pull off and giving the player a powerful illusion of choice.

The power of Brennan Lee Mulligan to be honest. I wasn't a D&D fan until my friend showed me a fucking 2-hour long video of a bunch of comedians telling a story about candy people in a GOT-type world. A few days later I was texting her in all caps at 3 a.m. actually sobbing over a fucking chocolate bunny.

Brendon?

@@DiscoSamurai Brendon Leeb Mulbigan

why use a rapier when a chair would work better?

"he grabs the back of your head and rips the skin off your skull". Done, let's get on with it

Both have their place, but something so brutal and so instantaneous, should be narrated quickly to invoke the proper shock.

Yep, like brennan said he didn't see the path from everyone can be redeemed to I can redeeme everyone 😀

@@lexisdemeyer4857 not only is Xerxus a classic though beautiful iteration of “Paladin betrays the Party in the name of their oath” trope, but also Asmodeus was right, his stance of “I can redeem anyone” is a display of pride and arrogance that could be expected from a Lord of the Nine Hells, let alone a Paladin

@@manticorephoenix It's not "right" in its definition, but it is amazingly well portrayed for the emotions you'd expect from this kind of dude.

And yet I find it brilliant how his beliefs on redemption are also the thing that pushed him to give Vespin a few more moments of lucidity, which then gave the entire group the opportunity to stop the primordials from being freed and join the Betrayer Gods. I think that, at the end, Zerxus wasn’t able to atone himself through his own actions, but that of all the others he previously looked down upon. The people of Avalir, the city he wouldn’t call home, fought together to protect his son. The leaders and upper class of the city stood behind to help the common citizens escape. Laerryn’s scientific hubris he previously admonished used to save the entire world from certain doom. Zerxus may not have been able to redeem anyone, much less himself, but his actions pushed others to strive to be better. In a way, his failure was what led other people to redeem themselves.

Bro tried to atone satan himself 💀💀

It's hiding underwater in the Shattered Teeth in my current campaign. Cerrit's decendants are watching over the site like the knights watching the Grail in Indiana Jones.

@@jordanpeterson5140 Better keep it there, we use a modified cursed version that wont stop annoying me in my sleep, demands souls on the regular or i get exaustionpoints from now to then if i dont feed her by bonking things to death. Which is quiet bad with a cleric that is the only really good one in the group :D

@@Cpt.Str4ng3 honestly, I have no idea where the party will end up (we're still early in the campaign). That's one of the very few things that's in place should they head that direction.

@@jordanpeterson5140 oh we are too,.we got, chronologically, took on a research quest in a steam punk city,get our asses kicked by by a white dragon, fell into the underdark, fought mushroom godzilla, aduccted a small mushroom,("maybe made a deal with a high level fiend),bonked dwarves, got out there, got our asses kicked by slads,nearly crashed an airship while half of the group was high in the kitchen, got back, fought sever moskitos and a giant shrimp(and nearly nuked the city), got drunk, stole coffee in a bar, rode another ship, fought a green dragon and manticors in basically a pokemon arena fight, won a columbian drug farm, had a dinner with a undead dreadknight and are about to have a discussion if its worth to kill 3,5k people to bring back one of our players that is also the brother of one of our chars. and that was lvl 5-9 so far.

his expression at 4:12 is so perfect for this 😂

@@thefinalfrontear Everyone else is reacting to the moment, while Lou dissociates.

he has an infinite amount of them stored away in his mind-vault. if Matt has an infinite amount of sound-effects, Brennan has an infinite amount of metal lines/insane speeches

He once said somewhere (I don't remember where) that it takes considerable effort to *not* talk like this normally on a daily basis, man's a walking Shakespeare character

you have link or something?

​@@rainbowcookie5598 pretty sure this entire series is on youtube

@@B0K0691 yeah just found it. just started watching dimension 20 and are binge watching the unsleeping city so didn’t knew about the channel

@@rainbowcookie5598 this is from exandria unlimited calamity

The trick is to make the players forget that the railroad is there. Rollercoasters are on rails, but they're still exciting. The real problem is when the DM and the players have different ideas of the kind of game they want to play. If the players are expecting action and the DM is hyper-focused on political intrigue and romance sub-plots, suddenly the railroad isn't fun anymore.

Brennan is a master of railroading without rails.

Technically every D&D game, unless played like a sandbox, is railroaded. You all know what the end goal is for you at the start. Get the mcguffin. Kill/friend the BBEG. Stop the revolution. Topple the government. It's all about how a GM is able to mask it, their ability to paint it with believable storytelling. Many times in Calamity, despite knowing their future as players, the characters made distinct, unique and impactful decisions which lead to the same outcome. Cerrit saves his kids and his lineage. Loquatius ends up sending thousands of people to a brighter future. Zerxus is given a second chance to protect and heal his allies. Laerryn stops ancient primordials from wrecking even more havoc. It all ends with "The Calamity". Many times they also felt like they made a decision when in reality, it was the only decision they could make. Like blighting the tree or even experimenting with reality tearing. Choosing to sympathize with the literal Devil. Brennan played into each character's weakness to make them "follow the railroad". Which, the takeaway here is that Brennan is a phenomenal GM able to play into who the characters are and what the players want to do with them. That is all to say that session 0's are REALLY important too! Expectations are the blueprints for the rails of which players are put on.

It's not railroading exactly. It's just that the story cannot come to another close. There is no other way. They could have made any decision at any time, the end of it was determined before the campaign even started.

I mean you say railroading, but in all fairness Asmodeus is basically a god - he can do whatever he wants.

True, the original sounded pretty damn good. But for this I wanted to alter it to sound more demonic considering he's portraying big daddy Asmodeus, Prince of Hell and Lord of Lies, so I just dropped his pitch an octave or two to bring it a bit deeper. For some it works and others it fell a bit short, but it was different and that's what I was aiming for =)

@@JudgementFishI kind of like both for different reasons and honestly it makes me wonder if we could layer it so one voice is over the other but slightly synced if that would make it sound more alien and godlike or just ruin it.

I like it

Call me crazy, but it kinda reminds me of the “Think, Mark” bit from Invincible.

I agree wholeheartedly.

It’s annoying and unnecessary. Kind of ruins the whole thing

@@mrdrprofsteve4455 Completeley, Brennan creates enough atmosphere by himself

@@supladosoul-jar5722 Brennan is atmosphere

Yeah legit the gravel and depth Brennan had in his voice made him honestly scary in that moment. I couldn't tear my eyes away.

One can safely assume that somewhere deep inside Brennan lives something demonic just waiting for him to let it loose

This seems similar to a kid that is angry that their sibling locked them out of a room after they were asked not to play with the toys in a destructive manner.

I mean there might be systems in Exandria that we don't have in the real world to explain this, but even if not... I mean he IS Asmodeus so... the arrogance checks out in either case

If anyone would be supremely arrogant and hypocritical, it would absolutely be Asmodeus.

There's a filter? I thought it was just brennan

@@quincyhotchkiss4775 in the official version it's just brennan, but this video puts a filter on it

@@quincyhotchkiss4775 yeah there's a filter, it's why Brennan's Asmodeus voice doesn't sound as raw and angry as it did in the actual mini campaign.

Thanks Douglas! Yeah its just a simple pitch drop an octave or two IIRC

I find it makes the scene less dramatic and a bit silly tbh

Burned by the embers of Armageddon, his soul blistered by the fires of Hell and tainted beyond ascension, he chose the path of perpetual torment. In his ravenous hatred he found no peace; and with boiling blood he scoured the Umbral Plains seeking vengeance against the dark lords who had wronged him. He wore the crown of the Night Sentinels and those that tasted the bite of his sword named him... the Doom Slayer.

Thanks Mark! Glad you liked it!

Thanks MHLS! I deeply appreciate that!

Thanks Patricia! I'm so happy that you enjoyed it! =)

I appreciate it Dakota! More on the way!