THE TRAVELER'S TRUE IDENTITY (2x94) | CRITICAL ROLE HIGHLIGHTS 

Someone please draw this

Oh my god. This had me on the floor laughing

NO, No go away David Bowie. Go back to your home David Bowie

Technically he choked a half-elf. ;P

@@heribertorosario4039 half man tho

I KNEW IT WAS THAT GUY!

That is a bit more complicated than that. Archfeys shares some features with gods. Immortals, able to grant power against worshiping and deeds. The thing i find great is that prayers and true, hopeful worshiping strengthens the powers of those they are directed towards. So she initiated his transformation into godhood (whether it is done or ongoing) and probably is his most powerful catalyst.

Accidentally?

Its actually even worse than that. If he makes everyone thinks he'll ascend beyond the divine gate then he might actually ascend beyond the divine gate.

Just to let people know there a mechanic in dnd that a belief is strong enough even if it just a concept they can basically become a cleric of it it called a philosophy cleric

He granted a divine boon? I didn't know he knew how to do *that*

​@@JordaanM till he spent time with Jester I don't think he knew how to. I like to think that there was a time where he thought he was making Jester a Fey Warlock but he was shocked to find she was a Cleric of his. Jesters' belief in him raised him to godhood and that same belief grant her powers.

there's no experts, they try to find experts in the news. They're like "we're joined by a man who once saw a demon in the underground" and it's like "Get out of here with that shit!" we've all seen a demon in the underground. this is an Archfey, loose in the Pantheon!

And then you meet with people who say "there shouldn't be an Archfey in the Pantheon" "We're way past that!"

And then someone says “Well if there’s an Archway in the Pantheon, then I’m gonna fuse my soul with a malevolent city.” And your just like “Those two things don’t match up at all!”

In a sense, yes, but no. He was an Archfey, which is by all means a god of the faelands that doesn't require worshipers to gain power, they just have godlike powers... but only there. When he came to the prime material plane, he did not have the ability to manipulate the world around like a god would(Like, a God in their natural plane literally manipulates and controls it like it's a Lego set) until he had someone believe him to be so. Vecna was a mortal man who wished to become a god through sheer power, like the Raven queen. He did not have that same innate power an Archfey has.

@@dragirby There is also the case of lesser and greater Deities. Don't know how they work in Matthew's world but in Forgotten Realms there are variety of Deities of different powers. I wouldn't consider Artagan as a god, but rather a already strong being reaching a form of Divinity. I think even Vecna, who wanted to become a god, took his first steps as a Deity of sorts. Oh well, only Matt knows what is happening in his world.

I've come to think of it as the Traveler is a creation of the friendship of Artagan & little Jester. from campaign one I got the sense that Artagan was bored and wanted a real friend. Vox machina gave him a doorway to their world. after traveling thou the door he met little Jester a child just as lonely as he was so they played and became friends. as child she probably couldn't pronounces Artagan so started calling him the Traveler. as they grow together in this world their friendship grows her faith in him and they both gain powers from that. Jester is more then just his first Cleric she is his best friend.

I see him as his self-insert, especially since so much fan art draws him in the background cloaked.

IKR? =/

logical, vox machina did give an archfey (feywild gods) a direct access to exandria ! my only real question is... the traveller is the first god born on this side of the divine gate after Vecna ! and thats only 20 years later.

Chipmunk Cheeze Don’t worry, they’ve already been drawing him for over 2 years now. Though now he’s going to need a bit more *green*

Well I mean theres already tons of drawings of the Traveller because its Artigan!

@@MusicsInMySoul977 and yet many people are like, why do they know him ? and we're like, go look at first campaign when they are in the feywilds. GARMELIE !!!!

And it turns out as a police sketch of Artagan

The Goddess Traveling Jester

You mean Jester the Pontifex Maximus

As an enthusiast of Roman history, this makes me SO ECSTATIC!!

To be fair, he's the only "deity" to appear physically since the Divine Gate went up, which told us quite clearly that he wasn't a god. When anyone else uses Commune they only feel the spiritual influence of things such as temperature and wind (as with Caduceus) from their respective deities. The Traveler is the only one who's actually showed up in physical form.

Watch the recent Talks Machina. She explains she asked for it to be Artagan among other thoughts.

Well from what Laura has said. She already heavily suspected this right from the beginning. Because her original idea for Jester was a warlock for Artagan (before Travis took warlock). Doesn't make the moment any less cool. But she deserves some credit since she's the one who came up with it. Matt just modified and developed it.

They confirmed it in the episode, it is indeed a callback to one of campaign 1's characters. Such an awesome tie-in too, it actually makes so much sense as well.

What's the quick summary of who this character was for someone who did not watch campaign 1

A Huntsman He’s an Archfey who did a favor for Vox Machina in a time of need, in exchange for their help in setting up a gateway for him to travel to the Material Plane from the Feywild.

@@ahuntsman4634 On the Critical Role Wiki there is a full description of Artagan that goes into detail of each episode he appeared in along with his character. It really helped me as I never got into Campaign 1. Just look up Artagan critical role and it should be the first article.

It's a campaign 1 NPC. A pretty powerful one

Well

Ummmm, about that

Huh well actually-

*ABOUT **_T H A T_*

uuuuummmmmmmmmmmmmmmm......................

First Disciple. That's a hell of a title.

Iain McDonald I also had this pop in my head when she said NOTHING to anyone int he group

Another Rakshasa moment? That would be the absolute worst ;(

It takes place 20 years after the first campaign. Jester is in her very early 20's.

Lex Vanguard But Laura definitely knew as well. She was the first to tell them absolutely it was him.

That was the original plan for Jester, but then Travis made Fjord and now we're here

I mean, lore wise, they're almost the same

She could always multiclass

I thought it was ukatoa nolie

I thought it was Trivago.

I thought it was Larkin

@@MrUmakemelaff Wheres the hotel?

@@eviebee where is Larkin? I haven't seen him since the fight with Vorugal in S1.

Yeah

You know... You may have stumbled onto a plot hole here... (Spoilers below for episodes after 2x92). When they met him he knew things about all of them without ever really having spoken to them. He had to have known how capable both she and the rest of the party really were if he'd been keeping tabs on them that entire time. He knew very well how competent they were. Matt said that Jester succeeding in fooling the Hag was the reason for why the Traveler decided she was worthy of knowing the truth about him. They met the Traveler in the jungle AFTER the cupcake scheme. If he had planned on Jester losing her memory along with everyone else on Rumblecusp, why go along with TravelerCon? In a hypothetical scenario, the only thing he could've done to get Jester to lose her memory was to just not tell her about what was really happening on the island. However, that hypothetical is null and void since he didn't tell them anyway and they went to Rumblecusp with just as little information of what was going on regardless of Jester's cupcake success. The outcome wouldn't have changed. The only way he could've offloaded his followers on the island would be if Jester and M9 had missed TravelerCon but since she was the one planning it, this would've been extremely unlikely. Both because they kept diligent track of their schedule to ensure they'd make it, and because this was too important to her, so she would've most likely gotten there after the fact if she got held up. The last potentially deciding factor would be if their Greater Restorations had failed, which was extremely unlikely with two Clerics and a Druid in the party. So, regardless of how it would've played out, Jester would not have lost her memory.

@@CriticalRoleHighlights Perhaps this was a shot in the dark, then? Maybe he wasn't *planning* for their failure, but saw it as a convenient upside if they did?

It was a reference to Bowie's character in _Labyrinth_ (remember that Taliesin was an '80s kid), and Bowie himself actually had a great sense of humor about such things.

Laura asked for Artagan to be the Traveler while creating Jester. She just wasn't sure if Matt went with it.

But why would she want that? She admires the traveller with her very being it would be like stealing your idols job. And the changebringer is chaos for the sense of progress while the traveller is chaos because all work and no play makes jack a dull boy which is needed in the stuffy places that is jorhast.

No, she just tells a demigod what to do

Because that's automatically retiring your character?

Didn't work out so well for Vechna.

No Hubris at all in that statement

@@elbruces I could easily see this happening to Jester post-campaign, though. I mean, she's the First Disciple of a god. Those kinds of figures often become deified themselves.

The Wildmother in disguise.

I swear, if Matt makes Larkin appear at Travelercon, my freaking head will blow up.

Also Ashley a little later: WAIT WHAT (that look with Tal)