1 - 20 of 355 Works in Caleb Widogast's Backstory
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Hope is a Fire to Keep us Warm by Void_Voyager
Fandoms: Critical Role: Exandria (Web Series), The Mighty Nein (Cartoon), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
07 Oct 2025
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Caleb gets separated from Essek after a failed teleportation spell. Now he has to try and find him
before Caleb's past catches up and destroys them both.- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 2,391
- Chapters:
- 1/9
- Kudos:
- 3
- Hits:
- 25
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Summary
Outside of the tower, a young man was sold
A promise of a new life, one where he would never be cold
Outside of the tower, a young man fled
Powerless and broken, the young man had bledHigh up in the tower, a young man lay,
Wishing he could escape, to live yet another day
But High up in the tower, the doors did soon close
For the young man's tale was to be full of woes.Falling out the tower, did a young man lay
Thankful of the time he could get away.
Underneath the tower, the young man died
Wishing of a life to not be terrified.OR
The life and death, life and death, and life of a tiefling who just wanted to feel safe. And the man who ended up relearning about them in all three lifetimes
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Essek hurts.
Essek has always hurt.
His body betrays him at every turn in life
And Essek does not wish for people to see, nor help him, when he hurts. So when the newest professor transfer starts to ask questions , Essek tries to stamp the curiosity down before things get out of hand.
He has to stop the curiosity, from both sides, before his patience wears too thin. -
the cold heat of memories by ArtificialHaunting
Fandoms: Critical Role: Exandria (Web Series)
28 Sep 2025
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Everyone knows Caleb Widogast's complicated relationship with fire, but few know his challenges with the cold. A few days before they are set to reach the T-dock, Caleb and Essek are forced to camp in Aeor. Essek asks why Caleb chose to specialize in fire, and instead learns why Caleb is fascinated with time.
Aka: the wizards finally have the Caleb Backstory Conversation, and Caleb is caught in that odd in-between, wondering if the T-dock has already worked before they even arrive.
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It was supposed to be simple: send Thelyss the picture he took and then move on from the encounter- no change.
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Or the one where photographer Bren only ever captures things, but ballet dancer Essek makes him want to forget about his own rule and take the shot. -
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Somewhere in the Empire, in a little town called Blumenthal, Bren Aldric Ermendrud wakes up from a dream that took him far outside it. He is fifteen years old at the time. He has dreams of something bigger. Soon, he will apply for the Soltryce Academy. Soon, he will leave his small life behind for something larger than life.
Now, he sits in his bed, comforted by his cat, who is purring loudly against his chest.
“I’m fine, Frumpkin,” he tells her, his breath still heavy from the gasp that he woke up with. “It was just a dream.”
or, consecuted Caleb AU
Series
- Part 17 of Seasonal Skirmish: Jackbox
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What do you do when you can't do anything?
When a sabotaged lesson plan infects Caleb, his colleagues, and their students with a rare and deadly disease, there is little to do but wait for a team of researchers to try and find a cure. But then, each moment seems an insurmountable task--avoid panic, take care of one another, manage their worsening symptoms, figure out who or what may have caused it, and stay alive long enough for medicine to be created.
There is something all too familiar about being locked in a Soltryce tower, trusting people who can't be trusted, and hoping death won't find you before morning.
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It was colorful, and bright, and intricate diagrams and paintings covered every bit of the walls. There was a cozy kitchen and a dining table set for two. More stairs led up to a second floor with branching rooms. Most strangely, giant piles of copper strands sat everywhere and interconnected through the whole room. It reminded him vaguely of a spider’s nest.
Maybe not the best place to stay, then. But he could see the open cabinet of components, and he couldn’t not take a look.
or, caleb has one dream
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Essek enters his field of view from the left side of the garden, his sun hat askew and his caddy of gardening tools loosely held in a shaking, dirt-stained hand.
“It’s the peonies,” Essek says and Caleb’s heart immediately sinks because he sounds desperately upset. “I don’t… they were fine yesterday—”
“Let me see,” Caleb offers before Essek can work himself up anymore, crossing the remaining distance to his partner.
In the heat of early summer, a blow is struck to Essek's garden.
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Obsession, over-protectiveness, hypervigilance- these traits were born from Caleb’s months at Ever and were refined with time. The unfortunate truth is that Caleb might have survived his childhood unscathed, had he not crossed paths with a certain Subject 001.
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villain and violent, infant and innocent by idiotic_sand
Fandoms: Critical Role (Web Series)
13 Mar 2025
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Caleb wants to rest and cut himself off all the noise and finally have time for himself. But he founds someone waiting for him in his room. And he knows it won't be easy to get rid of him.
(My take on what if Caleb told Molly about his past, inspired by forwards beckon rebound by Adrianne Lenker)
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“This game we are playing, is it for information?” Caleb asked once, early in the morning, the darkness never quite leaving the cell room he was kept in.
“Not for them,” the Chiss answered slowly, like an admission. “My… interactions with you are not monitored nor ordered by my officials.”
“So why?”
“You are…. interesting. Different.” A pause. When he spoke again, his tone was quieter. “And perhaps, right to distrust Trent.”
OR:
A Shadowgast-centric Star Wars AU for my beloved Mighty Nein -
probably mindless dreaming by EldritchExecutive
Fandoms: Critical Role (Web Series), The Mighty Nein - Fandom
07 Feb 2025
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It’s a sense of irony, Caleb thinks in a wild corner of his brain incapable of handling the guilt, that Molly has never demanded a secret from any of them. He has demanded some sense of companionship and teamwork, but he does not demand their truths. And now they are demanding his. Caleb sees Molly’s face flash with something wounded, and some part of his heart, small and usually so hidden – breaks.
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In an unhealthy pursuit of answers about his missing years in Vergesson, Caleb asks Essek to do something terrible. Essek, well practiced at doing terrible things, agrees.
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Let the Old Ways Die by withthekeyisking for venndaai
Fandoms: Critical Role (Web Series)
12 Dec 2024
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Caleb might've declined the Martinet's offer to become the new Archmage of Civil Influence, but that does not mean the drama of the Cerberus Assembly is done with him.
Series
- Part 27 of 2024 Event Fics
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In a room in Aeor labelled the T-Dock, a group of adventurers finds a man stuck in a time loop, forever repeating the same moves, the same words.
They promise to set him free.
Series
- Part 1 of Tangled Threads
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“We may have severed the head of the beast, but I’m afraid it still lives. Now, it’s a wild and unpredictable thing, you see? I will not let it corrupt the good we’ve begun to weave into this nation. Will you help me, my friend?”
Trent Ikithon has been brought to justice and most of the Volstrucker have vanished as though they were nothing more than frightening folklore. Caleb Widogast believed in second chances. Beauregard Lionett believed him to be naive. Eight months after the trial’s end, the Expositor finds troubling evidence of a new collective being created by Scourgers, and the implications are far from reassuring.
What haunts the shadows doesn’t always remain in the dark.
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In Zadash a tiefling con man and a wizard con man meet and fall slowly in love with plenty of bumps along the way.
The late autumn leaves scattered across the road just outside the bus station. Molly looked around hoping to find somewhere to rest his feet and maybe get a beer. Most of the inns and taverns on this side of Zadash were not worth stepping into, too small and they’d notice his hustle. He needed somewhere prominent, somewhere loud, somewhere that they would be too pissed to notice his hands in their pockets.
Somehow in the short con, he meets a soft wizard who he can't seem to get enough of.
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The Uthodurn scene with the shopkeeper and residuum got me thinking, what if Caleb thought the residuum might still be there? How would he deal with that knowledge? (Not well)
There’s gold in his arms. Well, not exactly gold, but maybe better (maybe worse, definitely worse). He heard it from the nice lady at the store, residuum is better than gold — worth more — it’s right there in the price, several gold for just a bit and he knows his exchange rates, that means it’s better than gold. Simple math. His skin itches and well, it’s itched since he got out, that’s not new. It itched before too, but in an excited, young way, a magic-waiting-to-get-out way, not a get-it-out-please-take-it-out way. What itches must out, is that a thing people say? He doesn’t know; words rotted in his mouth when he was locked up and now they skitter away from him like roaches. That’s what happens when you lose a decade.
Series
- Part 1 of Exercises & Drabbles
- Part 4 of Fresh Horrors (Eternal Whumptober)
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The trauma of Caleb’s backstory haunts him still. Now through the medium of his dreams, of rather his nightmares. A short story about Caleb and Essek, not long after the events of the Mighty Nein’s campaign so do not read if you care about spoilers and haven’t finished it!