Delving Deeper: Who is Lord Ravenshade

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Welcome to Delving Deeper with Oleander Hawthorne, where we have meta game discussions about our characters, events in the game, the world, or even just to demand of someone "What the hells were you thinking!?" This week Oleander, Delphine, and Einar discuss the insidious Lord Ravenshade.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:31

Welcome to Delving Deeper, where we do uh megame conversations, uh at talking about the game, decisions about the characters, how characters felt about things, or just asking each other what the hell are we doing? Now, today we are talking about Lord Ravenshade. Who is he? I hate him. What the fuck is his deal? See, and you have less reason to hate him. You just hate him like adjacently. Yeah, you don't really have any real reason to hate him. He is the best friend that hates somebody because they hurt you, and then he's just he's holding that grudge, and we all have that friend, and we've all been that friend, I think. We will hold the grudge because we need to destroy that other person. He's doing that.

SPEAKER_01 1:19

He destroys the city I fell in love in. Screw this guy.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

Okay, fine. You have a little reason now. He didn't destroy it. You hated him before that. He didn't destroy his.

SPEAKER_01 1:29

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:30

He didn't destroy the city, he kicked us out of it. Alright, so to be fair. Lord Ravenshade, where did we first meet him? Uh, in a bar. No? No. The Gilded Griffin in Crystalborough. Sorry. Just arrived. Yes. And we thought we we were afraid people were on the lookout for us, so we split the party and three went to a dive bar. And Delphine, Oleander, and Drewkin went to the Gilded Griffin, which is a nicer place in town, which is actually the first time that she had to be in pup Delphine had to be in public as her tiefling self. Yeah. Well that's what that's where we met him, but they met him first. They did meet him at the dive bar. They met him first, the boys.

SPEAKER_01 2:09

We checked into a really shady hotel.

SPEAKER_00 2:11

Drax, Rold, and Einar.

SPEAKER_01 2:14

Went down to the bar to scope it out. Uh Drax and Einar took up smoking pipes to try to look inconspicuous and looked very conspicuous. And then Ravenshade disguised the pipe before. Ravenshade engaged us in Rold and gave us several hints about where the crimson hourglass was in the world.

SPEAKER_00 2:35

Now, did he introduce himself as Ravenshade? I don't think he said his name. I think we figured it out because we compared descriptions.

SPEAKER_01 2:43

Ravenshade was mentioned, not Lord.

SPEAKER_00 2:46

I feel like he didn't fully introduce himself to you guys, but he did introduce himself to us.

SPEAKER_01 2:53

He he chatted with us and mentioned that he was a patron visiting the city in new new new new Gildenridge.

SPEAKER_00 2:59

But I don't think that he said he did not say his name to you. He only said his name to us, and then later on we realized it was the same person. Yeah. So when we met him at the Gildagriffin, we went out for dinner, and there was a party going on at Lord Gildenridge's Manor that we were trying to get an invite to. So the these three were going to figure out a way to sneak in themselves. We were gonna get an invite in there because an item called the Crimson Hourglass was there, and we needed to A, talk to Lord Gildenridge because we thought he was in danger. That's a different story. That didn't go that whole thing is a different story. And then B, we had we wanted to get the Crimson Hourglass before the Wretched Dawn sisters could come for it. So we were in a dinner, you and me and Drewkin. We yeah, we sat in the um tavern portion of the fancy. It's a fancy a place to be the tavern. It's a five-star restaurant. It was a restaurant. Yeah. Whatever the place. The wherever you sit down in the fancy ass restaurant, that's where we were having our charcuterie and tea and wine or whatever we were having. And he approached us because we looked fancy. No, because Delphine dropped her house name. Yes. But how did you do it to get his attention? Did it to get his I was trying to get anyone's attention, really. But did were you just saying your family name out loud? I think I we were we had a pretend conversation and I just said it out loud. I didn't say my my name was I did not pr present myself as a member of the family. I represented the house Miriam of Silvery Moon because she doesn't want people to know that she is a child of the family. She only wanted people to think that she was this, you know, rich people keeping an exotic pet kind of thing to work for them because she was presenting herself as a tiefling, and that would be the only way she would be accepted, is either this horrible thing or this is a rich person's eccentricity, and that's why they can get away with it. Because I was dressed in like a peacock gown and everything, and I did myself up. And I dropped House Miriam, and that's when he circled to us and sat down and talked, and was extremely charming.

SPEAKER_01 5:17

He was right from the start, he was inviting you to the party and handsome.

SPEAKER_00 5:22

You were coming as his guests. Yeah. He offered to escort us and Druken as well. So, okay, so when we say the boys, it's always referring to, or it used to always refer to Drax Einar and Rold. Drax Einar is sometimes one. Druken was one of the girls. He was Droken and always that that's the way the parties naturally split it, split from the beginning. Yeah. Up until very recently, that was the natural split. Um so Druken was with us and a lot of relationship like tension because we're all trying to renegotiate the group.

SPEAKER_01 5:57

It really was between the boys, and Rold was by himself. He wouldn't stay around.

SPEAKER_00 6:04

John, but we made you take Rold. Yeah, we made you guys take Roland. Even then he'd either fall off or it's like the younger brother and mom Macy play with him.

SPEAKER_01 6:11

Especially after he said he didn't like our naming structure to go and hang out.

SPEAKER_00 6:15

That's a different conversation.

SPEAKER_01 6:16

I hurt my feelings.

SPEAKER_00 6:16

But yeah, Ravenshade invited the ladies and Drew Kin. He was going to escort them personally as his guests to the fancy ball. So we get all dolled up, we go to Lord Gildenbridge's Manor, we went shopping. We went shopping. I got a fancy dress. Yeah. And then it got burned up, but that's a different story.

SPEAKER_01 6:37

While they're doing this, we're actually scouting the mansion, figuring ways in, you know, roughing up the help while they're out running errands and figure out how to copy and take their uniforms, which we might use, you know. The boys were actually doing important stuff.

SPEAKER_00 6:53

I'm sorry, picking out dresses is very important. We looked pretty. You have no idea what what nuance goes into your dress and your presentation when you were dealing with nobility. We had to shiny Drunken to go with this. And then it allows me to be. All you did was polish his armor. By the way, fun fact that's not been mentioned. Everything Drunkin wears turns black. He is a giant, like, Nordic goth guy. Basically. The Raven Queen likes black.

SPEAKER_01 7:19

She doesn't like him anything but black, so she And everything he wears turns black. That's like her third commandant. That shall always be in black.

SPEAKER_00 7:25

So so anyway, we get into the party, he gets us in the door, and then he just disappeared. We didn't see him the entire rest of the entire rest of the time. He just he he's like, oh, I gotta go talk to someone. He just poofed. We're a dance guy. If he is going to escort us to a ball, he owes us dances. I don't know. And I'm gonna dance with him. Well, he's still handsome and he still has manners.

SPEAKER_01 7:51

Immediately after that, you guys are in a situation where you're getting nearly locked up. He didn't escort you.

SPEAKER_00 7:55

He went into a trap. He knows he did what he technically did that he would do. He got us in.

SPEAKER_01 8:01

He led you into a trap for his own.

SPEAKER_00 8:03

No, no, Aaron did let us into a trap. You think he didn't know what happened?

SPEAKER_01 8:08

Faron led us into a trap. Shhh. He was doing something during that time. He was probably disguised as that mysterious guy standing by the window, seeing if he could get the glass.

SPEAKER_00 8:15

He probably used us as a distraction to get himself in. Yeah. That was probably without notice. Anyway. Um so then the events of the ball happened, which is a different discussion for another day. Probably involving when I talked to Theron again. However, we did not meet Ravenshade again until well after this. So now we have sort of been deputized by Valera, the captain of the guard for Crystalboro. We've been introduced to the council, we've reconnected with Theron. And we are investigating what is going on in the town. And what did we need to go to? You know what? I cannot remember why specifically. Varnak. We were looking for Varnak the Veiled. Oh, we wanted information. Yeah. And then nobody would talk to us. We were having to be all secret, not secrety. And nobody would talk to us until we finally very subtly um said that we were looking for certain information, and he told us to shut our mouths and meet him in a secret location at a secret time, which we but only with us. Because somebody was there trying to be all intimidating, and Ravenshade said, Nah, I ain't having any of that. Talking to you. So the ladies had to go into the creepy alleyway room that led into like an underground prison. Man cave. No, there was there was prison. A literal prison.

SPEAKER_01 9:46

At the end of the prison was his little creature down there, and then there was a man cave. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:51

People aren't there.

SPEAKER_01 9:52

And I will point out that while you guys were down there, very important stuff happened in the fact that he laid an ambush with illiphids up top waiting for people to re-emerge.

SPEAKER_00 10:00

That's something else. We're talking about something else. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:03

One more sell-up by him.

SPEAKER_00 10:04

But then we We were discussing with him, and he would not give us information without a big explain. First of all, this is already Delphine had been starting to get really suspicious of him. At first he was like, oh, it was an eccentric, lovely, charming, no-built guy. Um but I s she started getting really suspicious, and it was as we were in this prison and with all the secretive, like cloak and daggerness of it, where I started getting a little bit of a spider sense of. Suddenly he looks like some, you know, like mafia lord. Right. I'm that no, that's when she started suspecting maybe he's a little bit on the on Delphine's side of heritage. I didn't have it, I didn't have it cemented yet. I think it was as soon as he started asking for a deal. Yes. As soon as he started asking for a deal, I was like You seized up and actually even regret not speaking up. Well, unfortunately, yeah, Delphine feels pretty damn jealous about what happened to someone. Jealous? Sorry, not jealous. Jealous is not the right guilty. She feels guilty. There you go.

SPEAKER_01 11:23

I was like, you're jealous of not having a deal with the devil?

SPEAKER_00 11:27

No, Delphine does not make deals with devils.

SPEAKER_01 11:29

Yeah, somebody did. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:30

So we didn't know. Yeah. That was that was the the s what really s cemented Delphine's suspicion is as soon as he basically forced a deal on Oleander and We came in with all of these items that we were willing to exchange, and all of them were just okay. Nothing really triggered anyway. Because he presented himself as a purveyor of magical items. Yes. Which is why he was hiding with all of his magical toys. But then he we needed information to protect children. And Oleander, above anything else, is about protecting children and doing whatever it takes for that purpose. So no matter what we were doing, we were we were trying all these offers that he was not accepting, and so Ellie Oleander just gave up and said, What do you want? And he wants a deal, an unknown exchange later on that we just have to promise to future favor. Yeah. So in order to do this, now she is very fearful and suspicious of deals and devils. Oleander For good reason. Oleander doesn't know any better. Oleander is just not a just looking to help. She wanted to make, get the information, help us out, and what we needed to do. I recognized that that was not something I I knew it was gonna come back to bite me in the ass. I was aware, but this is to save the life of children, and I'm not gonna I'm not gonna I'm not gonna put myself and my later problems above the lives of these children. So I made this deal. And as I shook on it, I could feel the magical burning in my hand from his ring where we connected. And little brand you've got. A little brand. I have a little brand. It's a mark there nonetheless. Yeah. And that's yeah. So that was me making a deal with the devil. We didn't know. We weren't sure.

SPEAKER_01 13:44

I'm gonna stick my foot so far up that devil's ass.

SPEAKER_00 13:47

Well, get in line. Uh so Delphine really doesn't like him now because that is, she does not like that her friend got tricked. She does not like that she wasn't able to protect her in almost like a big sister guilt manner. And like she feels that she should have known better. Like, should have caught onto it way faster what was going on, what he was, because she's always afraid of this kind of stuff. But he then disappeared from our lives until in the game that is now out.

SPEAKER_02 14:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:21

After the siege of Crystalboro, we run into him again. Yeah, because we return to the town. We are there for this battle, we try and help. We find out that the um Captain the Guard actually No, we can do spoilers now. There are spoilers for episode one and two in here. Uh I guess I have a little bit of three. So she's not on the up and up. Yeah. So yeah. We find out that Captain the Guard is actually a traitor.

SPEAKER_01 14:56

And she's a member of the Obsidian Shadows. My like my Drax is nemesis.

SPEAKER_00 15:02

And yet we always forget to look for them. Always. You guys were so good at the beginning. So good.

SPEAKER_01 15:08

We have gotten so out of our source with everything that's happened to the boys.

SPEAKER_00 15:12

We keep forgetting, and I'm afraid the DM's gonna smack us upside the head one more time with them.

SPEAKER_01 15:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:20

And someone's just disappearing for something. But the softness. Somehow, because he's a devil, um, he Ravenshade finagled his way on. Charmed. Charmed people. He charmed. He literally charmed people on his way onto the castle. Oh yeah. Literally. He was trying to get she was extra mad at him. He was making the council vote. They they had they had voted him in, but he was trying to get the council to vote to place him their leader. Their leader, to so he would be the new lord of Gildenridge.

SPEAKER_01 16:02

Temporary lord, because the other temporary lord was missing on the trail. And of course, Lord Theron, who had been the next favorite an emissary to take over. And with the Lord Gildenridge being in a shall we say, state where he's not capable of being any use or being lordly, uh there was a power vacuum.

SPEAKER_00 16:23

He may or may not be dead, it's really unclear. Uncle. It's really unclear. We don't know. We don't know, and I don't know that we're gonna find out.

SPEAKER_01 16:31

A power vacuum was created that Lord Ravenshade inserted himself into. And then promptly, as soon as he did, literally undeputized us, essentially banished us, not at first, but we knew better and took off our own card, only to find out that yes, very quickly thereafter, he issued warrants for our arrests, actually.

SPEAKER_00 16:52

But not not be f before we left Crystalboro, Delphine went. Delphine, well, before we ran from Crystalboro. Delphine went and picked a bit of a bit of a fight with Ravenshade.

SPEAKER_01 17:05

That's one of my favorite moments of yours. I was proud of you of you for that.

SPEAKER_00 17:08

Well, she really doesn't like Ravenshade. So Delphine, while you guys were packing your things. In a manner of speaking, I was packing something. She was packing something.

SPEAKER_01 17:18

And I'm gonna lock him in a room with the bat.

SPEAKER_00 17:22

Anyway, they I went to his room, and when Delphine is speaking to him, so Delphine can speak Infernal because she is a Tiefling. And what is not doesn't come out is that the reason she knows Infernal is she dreams in Infernal. So when she speaks to Ravenshade a lot of the times now, because she's trying to like, she wants him to know that she knows what he is. You're goading. I'm goading him. I'm not I'm not afraid. I should be. She knows that she should be, but she hates him just that much that she's not being quite as careful as she normally is. So reckless. I'm being a little reckless. She went to his room, and she's speaking only in Infernal. Um basically to warn him A, I don't understand why you got involved with Vermin. You are a devil. Why do you care what's going on here? What is your game? What do you get out of it? B, stay away from my friend. I'll make sure you do not like it if you don't. And C, just to let him know that sh I know I'm onto you. I know what you are, and I do not fucking like you. And he responds, she manages to get him to respond back in infernal, and his accent changes. I hear his actual voice. So she's she's probably picked up picked a bit of a a scab, a bit of an enemy with that one, but she doesn't really care.

SPEAKER_01 18:45

And she's don't make a f an enemy for life.

SPEAKER_00 18:48

Well, I have a lot of enemies, right? We all have a lot of enemies. We're not doing so hot in that department, so what's one more? But the DM has forgotten about this because he's doing too many other things and we don't have to worry about it. Exactly. I'm sure he's totally forgotten.

SPEAKER_01 19:04

He's he's saving it because Ravenshade doesn't want to show back up directly and deal with us himself.

SPEAKER_00 19:11

Yeah, do you know? Do we want he's forgotten we we didn't exist? Uh no, we're not gonna be a problem. We're never gonna hear from him again unless, of course, my what if theory. I never have to deal with the devil again.

SPEAKER_01 19:24

And uh now I'm gonna find out what devil blood tastes like.

SPEAKER_00 19:27

Yes. Just saying spicy.

SPEAKER_01 19:29

Just saying. I can't wait. I cannot wait.

SPEAKER_00 19:31

I bet that is really spicy, like Delente. That is one character.

SPEAKER_01 19:36

I'm not gonna play.

SPEAKER_00 19:37

I think Delphine's I think Delphine's um blood is probably very spicy. I know. I look forward to it. Now, I want us to uh hear a little what if from Delphine. This is a theory that I've got a theory. It could be bad! Go watch Buffy. This one's good. Everybody needs to watch Buffy. This one's good. This is a good thing. As a side note, if you want to hear, understand a lot of pop culture references we make you need to watch Buffy. I'd say 90% of our references, no, well, maybe Buffy or watching Marython, or just songs. No. But a large portion are Buffy. Large portion is Buffy. Yeah. It's overhead. So so my what if. My what if. So Delphine is a tiefling. Delphine does not know why she's a tiefling, how that came to be. She's not stupid. She thinks probably her parents were involved, but she doesn't want to think that they've done something like that to her. My what if? Because he is the only devil we've met in the game. What if Ravenshade is if not her actual father? He is the devil someone made a deal with that resulted in her being a T flame.

SPEAKER_01 20:50

The patron of the reason.

SPEAKER_00 20:52

This is my what if? Oh, but then we'll find out. What if he's your dad and then he uses my deal, which he's forgotten about, totally forgotten about, in order to um finangle something from you. Like I have to I have to get him closer to you, or I have to bring you to him. And we won't know until we have to sacrifice you to him. Snacrifice.

SPEAKER_01 21:16

Would there maybe be anything else that we want to talk about that he might also be after with Delphine?

unknown 21:21

No.

SPEAKER_01 21:22

There's another one that I wonder about. Okay. I wasn't sure if that's a spoiler or not from earlier things, so.

SPEAKER_00 21:28

However, I would like to point out that just like when you have the friend that holds the passionate grudge for you so that you don't have to, I don't hate him nearly as much as they do. I hated him before, and I hate him more now, and I'm I'm she's ready to throw down, and this is just like it's like twisting the knife. Is that now you've got her on something, and I should have protected you from that. And I didn't pick up on it faster. It's all your phone. I feel really bad about it. You should. I should.

SPEAKER_01 22:02

Einar is Einar's big, and there's a big one coming. It's not even known because he doesn't know about the deal. She's dead.

SPEAKER_00 22:10

Oh no, we never did him. They're worried about the action. Oh no. We didn't tell anyone. And there was even recently in-game where I intentionally did not mention it. There was a moment recently.

SPEAKER_01 22:23

Because Einar is the type of character that for his friends, especially for his lava.

SPEAKER_00 22:29

Oh god, don't say lava. We're gonna say it like that. Okay, that's that's okay.

SPEAKER_01 22:39

He would want to deal with the problem head on and first so it wouldn't be a problem for her down the road. And he he's the type too that is like, we can handle it. We do it, we dive in, we're we're powerful enough. No, there's and he doesn't his opinion was this guy kept setting up my friends and us. It was the first time it's like, so you set us up to get caught in this ballroom fight and take advantage of us. You set us up to be caught in the alley, because he absolutely believes that the elephant that ambushed them in the alley, that he was invisibly waiting outside and guarding the door when they showed up and he stalked off after him. He believed for sure that he heard their conversations. It sounded like they were waiting for them. So he's like, he sold us out, the son of a bitch. And then he got us on the third time when it's a and now you've turned on us in the city.

SPEAKER_00 23:20

What the third is Okay, this is Delph Delphine's interpretation of that, not including the elephants, is although. When we were leaving, I did do ascending in Infernal. That was me confirming he's a devil because he would resp he responded back in Infernal. I said, that's twice you've fooled us now. Why would basically why would you bother wasting your time? So the first time was um disappearing on us in the ballroom, second time was actually he's the one who led us to the basement of the museum, which is where we did find Varnack the Vale, but we also were ambushed by Varnack and a bunch of ill fits, and he's he knew that that was gonna happen. And the third time is him showing up for the council. So he did promise her, let's try for a third, and the third was the council.

SPEAKER_01 24:10

Yeah, and so uh Einar's beef is different than theirs, and especially, yeah, when he finds about the taking vegetable deal, it's just gonna be that extra, like, okay, this this song is going down.

SPEAKER_00 24:21

Now, the reason why I don't hate him nearly as much, too, is because he has some manners at least. He's very charming. He's very charming. Very silver fox, Dosecchi's.

SPEAKER_01 24:33

They are manners and charm used in deceitful and dangerous ways. And I'm not confused by him at all.

SPEAKER_00 24:40

No.

SPEAKER_01 24:41

Or tricked.

SPEAKER_00 24:42

Oleander is very manner-oriented. Not not super manner, it's not specifically, but he's not mean for the sake of being mean. He's not just a plain asshole. Sure, he might not be good. He's not diabolical, he's a devil. He's he has his own agenda and he's working to his own agenda, and she can understand that. And sure she might not like it, whatever, but he's not a he's not a dank. But he is still capital D devil, which means he is the embodiment of evil.

SPEAKER_01 25:15

He may be.

SPEAKER_00 25:17

I just don't understand why he wants us dead. Like, what did we do to him?

SPEAKER_01 25:20

Because we can upset the power of ballads.

SPEAKER_00 25:22

Well, he wants he wants some of us. We don't know if he wants to. He knew about the kills me, he can't.

SPEAKER_01 25:27

He knew about the captain. He knew about letting all that happen. And he could have done it. And the reason is because he knew it would help destabilize sacrificed kills too to get in good position.

SPEAKER_00 25:37

He's not good. I didn't say he's good. It's still not clear how far intertwined he is in the machinations that we are investigating and trying to prevent. He is, in my my Delphine's impression, my impression is that he is taking advantage of certain parties to further his own goals, which at times align with their goals. But I don't think he is a worshiper of Ashwill. No. No. No. No, he has his own goals, for sure. Shall we remember up? Yeah. So yeah, that's uh I think that's about everything we have to say about Lord Raven Shade. So thank you very much for joining us for delving deeper with Oleander Hawthorne, Delphine Alendra.

SPEAKER_01 26:24

And our Wildsel.

SPEAKER_00 26:26

And if you like what you are watching, drop us a like and a follow and comment and any questions that you might have for us about Raven Shade or otherwise, or our desire for more well-mannered villains. Well mannered villains get far. Yes. Thank you very much.