"Long may he reign" (Patreon)

First off, this piece is fanart. If you don't know Critical Role, have a look, listen to an episode or two, and enjoy it. I have to add that I am horribly far behind on the second season. I really want to catch up and maybe I will have the time after this con. Listening to podcasts that I am too engrossed in sadly does not work for me while I am working because I actually forget to work and just stare at my screen, listening.
Second, this piece turned out way more personal than I thought at first. But to use the right words for this I will have to delve into Critical Role story that is a spoiler so beware!

*Spoilers ahead*

When I started to watch Critical Role on Youtube I thought it was a bit dorky, because there were grown up people sitting around a table and, well, they were making up stories as they went. They talked in funny voices (which was not that ridiculous since they are all pretty amazing voice actors) and did stupid stuff. I've always wanted to play Dungeons and Dragons but I was never brave enough to find a group.
Soon I was gripped by the characters, their charm and their stories. I understand why there is such a huge fandom around it, the characters just feel very real. After hours and hours of listening to them act and interact, I got really attached to the characters.
If you know Dungeons and Dragons though, you know that everything is decided by dice. Which means you can also die, your carefully crafted character that you love so much... gone. Which is what happened with Mollymauk Tealeaf, a Tiefling fortune teller bye Taliesin Jaffe. I got spoilered online because I was two episodes behind back then. And I thought that, when it would happen, it would not affect me as much. But I was wrong. Listening to that episode, seeing Taliesin leave the table because Molly died, it hit me. There were many moments before and after that, that touched me. But losing a character you love, and losing them not to storytelling reasons or anything like it, but to a bad roll, is weird. I might call it devastating. We will never know Mollymauks story. To me, it felt like an actual death. It was not an instrument to forward something, it was a beloved character that just died.

For me this illustration is a bit to deal with this weird feeling and to say Goodbye. It reminds me of actual people I have lost. But also, it is a reminder of the many characters that I have, that never made it onto paper because I did not have the time to tell their story. This might all be way too deep for fanart, so I'll go eat some cake now.

<3 Sarah