Mollymauk Supercut
Molly's Tarot Cards Supercut

THE CARNIVAL

Molly was introduced as a promoter for the carnival and as a "fortune-teller" within it. His fortune-telling "abilities" came from card-reading techniques and sleight of hand, not actual magic. He never developed an act for the show itself.

Molly speaks with the same accent as Gustav.

Molly's name was chosen for him by Gustav, because they had to forge papers for him. "Empty, so they started calling him M.T."

Molly sees Gustav as a mentor; within the circus, there are strong parental figures for the whole community, and Gustav filled this role. However, it's not quite a father: "There's unconditional love without reverence."

Molly doesn't miss staying with the circus; "it wasn't going to function without Gustav. There wasn't an adult left."

His stage name with the Carnival of Curiosities was "The Ice Spinner", likely due to his ability to summon ice with his blood.

As part of a scam and initiation test for The Fletching and Moondrop Traveling Carnival of Curiosities, he spent three weeks pretending to be a reincarnated royal from overseas.

“What the fuck was up with Gustav?” Matt explains that he was the one who originally made the deal with the Devil Toad, who essentially offered to make the carnival great if Gustav could provide him with people to eat. Gustav got around the deal by offering to bring him elderly and infirm after the show (which is why they were barred from the show itself), but everything got completely out of hand. All of this is why Gustav was so guilty and determined to serve out his sentence.

The M9 encountered a mosaic of three creatures and nine eyes. Laura gets Matt to confirm that the carnival in the first episode was all about those three entities.

SEXUALITY/GENDER

Mollymauk's official pronouns are he/him but Taliesin figures he would be chill with anything.

Matt said that Mollymauk was a character who was openly bisexual (or pansexual, see below) and genderfluid in an interview on the DnD Beyond twitch channel.

Molly has been described as having a "difficult to make out gender" from afar, appearance-wise. He specifically protests against using 'male viles' for a plan, and 'pan viles' was thrown in by Nott/Veth instead, and he accepted that... even if she was a little confused in her reasoning.

Jester: I hold onto Molly's horns.
Molly: I'm into this.

Molly very softly and suggestively saying "I like manacles."

About being called 'baby', "I felt demeaned, but in a good way. Felt all tingly."

AMNESIA

Molly woke up more-or-less naked, with shaved hair, and without tattoos (apart from the red ones). The tattoos are partly about rebuilding a persona by covering up the old ones. "Molly is not missing any time or memory. Molly is two years old. There's nothing wrong with him."

Molly's "mild nervous breakdown" after the fight didn't so much have to do with the violence as, potentially, the glow of his sword and newfound aspects of his powers. "Molly's not a tortured soul; he had his nervous breakdown, he's fine."

Molly is feeling like he missed out on "18, 20 years, he doesn't know how old he is", and he has expressed some regret at not experiencing a childhood. He feels like his past is catching up with him, and he's pretty sure he won't survive that if it happens. He feels like he has to experience everything because it's likely to end suddenly.

For now, Molly's decided not to worry about his past catching up to him. "The road's always safer at times like this for him. The minute you start to gain a reputation, cities are where bad things happen. We need to get out of here before they decide that we're dangerous or useful, which are the two worst things to be."

He doesn't care who Lucien was. It doesn't matter if he's a good person or a bad person, it's "I'm made of nothing but the decisions that led me to be this person. You get to decide who you are, and he's very much decided who he is." Brian talks about people being defined by their worst (or best) moments. Taliesin: "He's selected the things that mattered to him, and he's fully in that and not interested in investing in anything else."

When asked about Ghostslayer abilities: "The nervous breakdown wasn't because of the violence."

Taliesin: "I haven't revealed any of Molly's backstory." Brian: "It's all bullshit?" Taliesin: "Is it?" His backstory is, apparently, deeply unimportant to who he is on every level; he's defined by his actions.

YASHA

Yasha knows a little more than the party about Molly. They only knew each other about six months before everyone met in-game, but they have enough shared experiences to understand who each other are and to have each other's backs.

Molly gave Yasha both the four-leaf-clover and a HIGHLY IRONIC BOOK OF MANNERS AND ETIQUETTE she keeps it in, beginning her flower-collecting hobby.

Molly has seen Yasha's wings before, very strong hints that he realized she was an aasimar and kept the carnival from freaking out about it when Creepy Yasha Things started going down. Molly was not surprised when Yasha's wings appeared. He's seen them before. Yasha did feature in the pregame, even though Ashley couldn't be there herself for Session 0. Tal guesses Yasha and Molly have been in probably about 25 fights together so far.

Yasha feels safe with Molly, and finds comfort in the fact that he will never judge her or demand she share more about herself than she offers. He's the reason she joined M9 and keeps coming back to the group. "They stay for each other"

Yasha's introduction to the circus triggered some things in Molly's head, and Yasha feels the safest in turn with Molly. There's no judgment or need to know more about each other's histories within the friendship.

FRIENDS

"He thinks they're cute so far and was definitely meditating upon the notion of taking all their shit and vanishing into the night."

Molly's already made his conclusions about everyone. Caleb thinks Molly is a lot of color, a lot of lies, and a lot of personality, but he's impressed by the talents of every person in the group. It's still better than he was - he's safer and they're getting a lot of gold. Molly: "It's a lot less dramatic than the circus."

In a Mighty Nein Battle Royale for Molly's affections, Jester would win - they have the most in common, and he identifies with how she's full of crap (but doesn't know it yet). He likes having a certain camaraderie with being tieflings walking in the world.

Molly is avoiding Kiri "for the same reason you don't name animals you're going to butcher." He figures she's got to be dealt with at some point in the near future or she's going to be splatted. "I am not getting attached to this creature, because one way or another this creature has to go."

Taliesin on Jester jumping in whenever NPCs flirt with Fjord: "You can't call dibs on people."

"This feels very comfortable and he's not really in the mood to alter that very much. He quite likes everybody, but he's also aware that they need to learn how groups like this function."

While on watch with Beau, Molly revealed that the best lie he ever told was when, as part of a scam and initiation test for The Fletching and Moondrop Traveling Carnival of Curiosities, he spent three weeks pretending to be a reincarnated royal from overseas.

According to Taliesin, knowing that his actions helped Beau survive and he would forever have a one up against her, Molly died with no regrets.

PERSONALITY

Basic thing about Molly: "The first thing out of your mouth should never be the truth."

Molly really doesn't like cops. "He's never going to keep his mouth shut."

Taliesin notes that Molly's generally mistrustful of humans.

Molly mainly gets motivated to follow plots based on the fact that he enjoys camping and new places.

On Mollymauk insisting on paying the silver piece for the horse: "He is one of the most moral characters I've ever played." He's got a serious code that he lives by. "There's a fairness to the universe and you should abide by it, and if it isn't fair then you should correct it."

Taliesin on Molly: "He is constantly delighted by shit. He finds life delightful, he finds everything delightful. Any thrill or high or otherwise, he is on board. That is what he does with his free time, which he has not had this week."

Part of why Molly's so decked out is because everyone else's reactions to that can tell a lot about who they are as people and how they can be manipulated. He puts his flamboyance out there in order to see how people react to him and see what kind of person they are. He's basically making snap judgments on people based on what he interprets as their snap judgments of him.

Molly's very much a when-in-doubt-say-yes person, so the opportunity to go along with the others rather than staying with the remains of his old life was hard to resist. "Better to be moving at high speed towards a wall than standing still."

Other than some scams, this is the most money Molly's seen in some time; he's not thinking too much about what might be pulling the strings behind all this.

Taliesin said that Molly has never really been alone and wouldn't be able to handle it.

Molly's happy to help out with the orphans, but it seemed like too much work for people they didn't know. Beau and Molly are both primarily motivated by wanting to help Fjord. Taliesin: "I'll feel better once there's a plan."

Personal Creed:
You don't steal from those who can't afford it
There's a fairness to the universe
You do what you took the money for
If there's something unfair about the universe you fix it

Moonweaver Creed:
Seize your own destiny by pursuing your passions
Let the shadows protect you from the burning light of fanatical good and the absolute darkness of evil
Walk unbridled and untethered, finding and forging new memories and experiences

Molly has been overpaying for things the entire game on purpose, and believes that the purpose of money is to make other people happy.

If Molly's giving advice to people outside the group, it's usually bullshitting, but inside the group, he's probably speaking from genuine experience in his two years with the circus. He did have a baseline of information going in. "There's information in his head, but it's just not all necessarily useful information."

On Molly using coercion-type magic on allies despite his strong moral convictions: "It's really easy to do if you are the center of your moral reality." He believes he's smart enough not to do anything wrong. "It works until it doesn't." He's also technically a worshiper of a god of lies. Whenever he does use spells like that, it tends to be punitive or whatever he considers to be helpful for that person. "It's definitely not something a normal, healthy person should do."

Molly just went for the insomnia potion/sleeping tea because it seemed interesting and he "wanted options". "But no, Molly sleeps like a baby." He's got a pretty clean slate after only two years.

Molly's "a big believer in playing hard." Molly's seen a huge part of the countryside traveling with the circus, but he just never learned the names of most of the cities because it was never a priority. "He sees a party, he's into this, and I'm just going to meet if not exceed the energy level wherever I'm at."

Molly has a deep distrust of staying in one place, exacerbated by knowing that "no one wants zany, kooky friends in their city" when wars begin around them. The people in power will start looking for spies, conscriptions, and "loud-looking people." Their ability to fly under the radar is over - they're too powerful to hide now. These cities are not places where niceness is necessarily rewarded.

Taliesin leans into Molly's charm (despite having a lackluster CHA stat) in part because he knows that due to how he looks, the world is a bit against him anyway. It's a strong Priscilla, Queen of the Desert vibe.

The notion of civilizing influences; Taliesin doesn't think Mollymauk has any. As a worldview, he brings up a couple lines from Don't Let's Start by They Might Be Giants: "No one in the world ever gets what they want and that is beautiful / Everybody dies frustrated and sad and that is beautiful".

Taliesin describes Molly as "a kind of shitty person who's fucking got your back."

ABILITIES

Molly's using Vicious Mockery entirely through intimidation. He's also entirely talking bullshit; if Jester didn't also speak Infernal, he'd just be blatantly saying nonsense words in a scary voice.

Molly's Devil's Tongue comes from himself, not Lucien. He knows he can speak Infernal and figured out that speaking it hard enough could make people bleed. The voice he uses comes from mimicking the Charm of Making from Excalibur.

MISC

The pendant is very specific.

The coat is embroidered silk, and a hand-me-down, most likely from Gustav or Desmond. There are a lot of the symbols on his coat, including all the symbols of the Exandrian deities. The back has a sun/moon combo where the sun is a skull. Mentioned by Taliesin on the mini painting show, but later retconned on his official action figure.

Mollymauk's deck is an original creation of Taliesin's, still in progress. He worked with his brothers (one makes games and one DMs) to start putting it together. In-game, Molly made it himself and has several unfinished ones.

Molly's tattoos are both meaningful and just because they're cool.

Molly first awoke with nine red eye tattoo on him. Mentioned are the right side of his neck, on his right shoulder, and one eye on back and palm of his right hand. Integrating and concealing these eyes, he had a serpent tattoo made that curled all along the length of his right hand and up his arm, that wove into a floral piece on his shoulder, and then into a peacock that ran up the side of his face. Although he had tried to tattoo over the eyes they would not take ink.

Between his shoulder blades rising towards the hairline, he had tattoos of an eye within a pyramid, eliminated by another eye above it. Flanking and connecting through it like a mantle, he had a moon and sun tattoo.

Alternate classes considered for Molly included bard and warlock.

He went Ghostslayer because it fit the "ghoulish" direction he wanted to take the character/class.