Critical Role Wiki

This wiki contains spoilers for the entirety of Critical Role and The Legend of Vox Machina. Proceed at your own risk!

READ MORE

Critical Role Wiki
Advertisement
Critical Role Wiki
Ley lines by Cyarna Trim

Official art of Exandra and its ley lines, from Exandria: An Intimate Appendix - Ruidus and the Gods, by Cyarna Trim.[art 1]

Magical ley energy flows invisibly around Exandria in ley lines[1] that enable the use of arcane magic. These flows transform the environment, especially at the nexuses where they converge, and they affect the barriers between the planes.

Description[]

When Keyleth used Commune with Nature, she sensed the ley lines as a fuzzy, blue, particulate or mist-like energy that curled up in several lines and split, web-like, in various directions as they traveled beyond the horizon. They travel around the world and form a network of magical pathways.[2] Later, when Keyleth and Allura cooperated in a Scrying ritual, those present could see tiny, sparkling, white-and-blue ley lines curled in circles and patterns around the table.[3]

The ley lines move and change size based on the time of year and celestial alignments.[4] For example, on Winter's Crest each year, the ley lines across Exandria swell and cross, causing the barriers between the planes to grow thin.[5] The recurring celestial solstice is a notably more powerful merging of ley energies, during which the barriers between the planes are thinnest; it is associated with some major historical traumas, particularly when it is an apogee solstice.[6][7] [8][9]

In the Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting and Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting Reborn, the adventure hook The Ley-Knot centers on a crisis caused by a High Shaman of the Moonsteeth gnolls: she had figured out how to twist and tie the ley lines running over Rootgarden Marsh, causing arcane magic to stop functioning within a 100-mile radius.[10][11]

During the apogee solstice of 843 PD, the normally-invisible ley lines began to glow with aurora-like colors, becoming visible energy twisting through the skies of Exandria as they shifted and were reshaped. They created arcane wind storms holding fierce lightning, and a psychic static perceptible to those sensitive to it. In Marquet, the visible lines converged on a location northeast of Bassuras in the Hellcatch Valley.[12]

History[]

According to Morrigan the Fatestitcher even before the Founding the ley lines were already present in Exandria as a source of magic, and that when the gods taught the arcane arts to the mortal races, they did so by showing them how to access the power of those ley lines.[13]

During the Age of Arcanum, siphons were placed at nexuses of ley lines across Exandria to gather raw energy for the crafting of powerful artifacts, including the Vestiges of Divergence.[14] Three ancient ley lines converged at Cathmoíra,[15] and Avalir traveled along the ley lines of Exandria.[16] During that era, Vecna harnessed the celestial solstice to attack his foes at a whim from the Shadowfell and withdraw before resistance could be mustered, but eventually his enemies discovered his use of the solstice and reverse-engineered his methods, allowing them to attack his home base of Thar Amphala.[17] Though all but two fragments of Vecna were destroyed, he had left instructions with his most devoted followers that would allow for his rebirth.[18]

The terrible arcane energies released in the Calamity totally reshaped the flow of ley energy around Exandria.[19] One of the climactic moments of the war was the fight to banish Tharizdun; Ioun baited the mad god to her central temple, Tharizdun nearly destroyed her, and her temple sank beneath the earth in her sorrow, but Pelor returned there after defeating Tharizdun and planted the Sun Tree[20] because this location was the nexus of several ley lines.[21] The Verdant Expanse was born from a dramatic flourishing of life caused by the shifting of ley energies into the area, causing overgrowth and uncontrolled magical instability that stranded many fey.[22]

Several centuries later, the cult of Vecna called the Remnants created more siphons in a bid to bring back their master. The second attempt at creating such a siphon took place in Duscar 810 PD; Delilah Briarwood intended to wait until Winter's Crest to perform a ritual that would allow ley energy to be siphoned from the nexus at Whitestone (at Ioun's sunken temple, beneath the Sun Tree) to Vecna's city of Thar Amphala in the Shadowfell. But weeks before Winter's Crest, Vox Machina led a rebellion against Briarwood rule and came to kill Delilah, so she performed the ritual early.[23] She did not know it at the time, but the ritual was a success despite the timing being less than ideal.

Thar Amphala by Thomas Brin

Fan art of three strands of ley energy stretching from siphons to the top of Entropis, by Thomas Brin.[art 2]

The Remnants created another siphon at the location of another ziggurat, beneath the strange Smouldercrown Mountains in Marquet's Rumedam Desert. When Vox Machina traveled to Thar Amphala in early 812 PD, they could see the energy flowing in a faintly visible bluish-purple strand from each siphon to the top of Vecna's dark tower Entropis, where the collected energy let off a bright, pulsing, purple glow.[24] Soon afterward, the power was used in a deadly ritual that brought back Vecna.[25]

Planerider Ryn was an expert on arcane ley lines[26] who, by 836 PD, forecast a possible shift in the veil between the planes,[27] somewhat analogous to the sudden flipping of the Earth's magnetic field, that could be related to a cyclical anomaly of magical interference.[28] She later discovered that the nexus of the apogee solstice coming in 843 PD was projected to be in the same location as a solstice many centuries earlier, leading her to believe the ley lines of Exandria shift in a recurring pattern. The site was a ruin of the pre-Age of Arcanum Tishtan culture.[29]

Before the apogee solstice, there were twenty-three ley line nexuses in mapped regions of Exandria, and an unknown number in uncharted territory.[30] As the solstice approached, the slowly moving ley lines became more and more visible in the sky (a phenomenon that the long-lived Chetney Pock O'Pea vaguely remembered seeing once before), initially beautiful, especially at night, but increasingly dangerous. Their energy caused magical effects such as arcane windstorms[31] and a growing psychic static that Imogen could perceive when opening her mind to it.[32] Several people across Exandria were teleported to different points of the planet, just after listening to Ludinus' speech, and according to Laudna, all of them could have been near a nexus of leylines.[33]

When reading documents found in the Sunrise Sanctuary, Bells Hells discovered that the nexus over Hearthdell was there due to the apogee solstice and the shifting of the leylines, and that the forces of Vasselheim had been trying to reassert their control over the village to have access to that new place of power more easily.[34] Directly over the Dawn City itself, the ley threads crossing the sky had become notably more tangled and extremely dense in a knotted nexus that emitted a faintly perceptible magical energy.[35] Three days later, people in that city could instead see a nexus between 100 and 200 miles to the southeast.[36] According to Morrigan the Fatestitcher, the presence of the Bloody Bridge bent the lines and created tangles, which could lead to very dangerous situations.[37]

During the great battle between the defenders of the Red Center and the armies of the Exandrian Accord, the legendary warriors of Vox Machina successfully deactivated and then destroyed the Malleus Key. The Bloody Bridge disappeared, Ruidus resumed its orbit, and the ley lines started to go back to normal.[38] Hours later, however, a new magical effect shook the entire weave of magic in Exandria: the Matron of Ravens, with the collaboration of Bells Hells and the agreement of her peers of the main pantheon, used the newly created Rites of Catatheosis to turn the gods into mortals; the mortals themselves felt the very essence of magic in the world changing as an effect of the ritual.[39]

Trivia[]

  • Before the apogee solstice of 843 PD the Cobalt Soul had confirmed the location of 23 ley nexuses in Exandria.[40]
  • When the Island of Viscan interfered with Allura's arcane teleportation, taking her and Kima to an unknown location, Keyleth visually scanned the ocean from the beach for signs of where Allura and Kima had ended up. She happened to focus on the distant location where they had ended up, and suspected that the arcane winds that blow through the ley lines might have guided her attention there.[41]
  • When Vox Machina asked Artagan why he hadn't returned to Exandria on his own, he said "the ley lines that guide the paths" are affected when things "rearrange every eon or so".[42] In truth, Corellon had banished him.[43]
  • Keyleth took a sprig from the Sun Tree back to Zephrah and tried to propagate a "Raven Tree" there, hopefully along the ley lines of Exandria.[44]
  • During one casting of Sending, it was noted that the message traveled along the ley lines to reach its intended recipient.[45]
  • Essek Thelyss has a device atop the tallest tower of his estate that keeps track of the shifting of ley lines.[46]
  • Matthew Mercer confirmed that the shifting of the ley lines during the apogee solstice caused divine magic and some particularly powerful spells to work well in certain areas, while being completely useless in other places.[47]
  • The tensions and shifts of the ley lines on Exandria during the Apogee Solstice didn't affect magic on Ruidus.[48]

References[]

  1. Sometimes written as leylines.
  2. See "Trust" (1x70) at 3:10:21.
  3. See "What Lies Beneath the Surface" (1x81) at 3:30:37.
  4. See "Stone to Clay" (2x91) at 1:36:19.
  5. See "Echoes of the Past" (1x38) at 26:26.
  6. The Raven Queen's ascension is implied to have occurred around the time of an apogee solstice.  See "Bitterness and Dread" (E3x02) at 1:11:01.
  7. An apogee solstice was recorded just as news was breaking of Vespin Chloras's ritual to release the Betrayer Gods from their extraplanar prisons, beginning the Calamity.  See "Excelsior" (E3x01) at 58:51.
  8. See "The Endless Atheneum" (1x106) at 1:18:46.
  9. Raishan notes that the plan to help Thordak escape on a celestial solstice would have been preferable to doing it on Winter's Crest.  See "Trust" (1x70) at 16:54.
  10. See Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting, p. 43.
  11. See Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting Reborn, pp. 67–68.
  12. See "The Aurora Grows" (3x49) at 4:34:51.
  13. See "A Test of Fate" (3x109) at 0:31:30.
  14. See "Duskmeadow" (1x57) at 2:57:55.
  15. See "Bitterness and Dread" (E3x02) at 55:09.
  16. See "Excelsior" (E3x01) at 1:00:45.
  17. See "The Endless Atheneum" (1x106) at 1:17:39.
  18. See Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting, pp. 38–39.
  19. See Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting, p. 7.
  20. See Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting, p. 51.
  21. See "Duskmeadow" (1x57) at 2:56:30.  See also 3:26:42.
  22. See Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting, p. 80.
  23. See "Echoes of the Past" (1x38) at 24:54.
  24. See "Thar Amphala" (1x101) at 2:35:50.
  25. See "Race to the Tower" (1x102) at 1:45:50.
  26. See Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting, p. 29.
  27. See "Between a Ball and a Hot Place" (2x129) at 1:10:00.
  28. See "Between a Ball and a Hot Place" (2x129) at 3:02:18.
  29. See "Axiom Shaken" (3x43) from 3:29:41 through 3:32:45.
  30. See "Reunited" (3x64) at 3:10:17.
  31. See "The Aurora Grows" (3x49) at 4:01:56.
  32. See "The Aurora Grows" (3x49) at 4:41:39.
  33. See "Faith or Famine" (3x60) at 1:50:41.
  34. See "Crisis of Faith" (3x61) at 4:16:13.
  35. See "Cages" (3x103) at 2:55:18.
  36. See "In the Shadow of War" (3x110) at 0:28:57.
  37. See "Fractures" (3x78) at 3:43:31.
  38. See "Fight for the Bloody Bridge" (3x114) from 2:30:02 through 2:31:37.
  39. See "A New Age Begins" (3x121) at 1:55:06.
  40. See "Reunited" (3x64) at 3:10:17.
  41. See "The Deceiver's Stand" (1x83) at 3:46:25.
  42. See "Dark Dealings" (1x112) at 3:37:49.
  43. See Explorer's Guide to Wildemount, p. 32.
  44. See "The Chapter Closes" (1x115) at 4:11:12.
  45. See "A Game of Names" (2x49) at 45:06.
  46. See "Stone to Clay" (2x91) at 1:35:03.
  47. See "4-Sided Dive: Why, Matthew?! Why?" (4SDx15) at 0:06:34.
  48. See "Red Rural Revelations" (3x84) at 1:58:19.

Art:

  1. Official art of Exandra and its ley lines, from Exandria: An Intimate Appendix - Ruidus and the Gods, by Cyarna Trim (source). Used with permission.
  2. Fan art of three strands of ley energy stretching from siphons to the top of Entropis, by Thomas Brin (source). Used with permission.
Advertisement