Welcome to Critical Role Demystified, I’m
Mike Christensen and this is the series where we break down the lessons we can learn - as
GMs and as players - from episodes of “Critical Role.” Today we’re tackling episode 38, “Echoes
of the Past.” The episode opens with the party returning
to the palace, with the unconscious form of the traitor, Riskel Daxio, slumped over the
back of Trinket the bear. And then, as they enter… Laura realizes something. LAURA: Wait a minute!
TRAVIS and SAM: What? LAURA: Where's Trinket right now?! Why isn't he on the set?! SAM: Where is Trinket? MARISHA: He's in the alley. LAURA: I'm getting him right now.
TRAVIS: No, no, no, no. Come on. LAURA: I know where he is. LIAM: Look Sam, what did you do? TALIESIN: Nothing can go wrong. This is a great idea. MARISHA: No one help her. LIAM: No one help her. TALIESIN: She can do this. MATT: You got this, Laura. You got this. ASHLEY: You got it. You got it. LAURA: Help me. MATT: This is a wonderful microcosm analogy
for pretty much every session. LAURA: Oh, he's here! MATT: Yay! Well done.
LIAM: So worth it. MARISHA: We should've played our theme music
over that. (laughter) They bring Riskel into Uriel’s throne room,
and when asked why he committed high treason, Daxio says he and the rest of his cult are
Vecna’s blood, and they will live eternal when everyone else is dead. He also says there are many “parts” of
Vecna out there, and while in one sense that’s literally true, it’s also figurative. Daxio’s group was called “the Blood of
Vecna,” presumably because he was working with a vampire, which is a fun little detail. But other sects might name themselves after
other aspects of Vecna’s anatomy. This is true about the Vecna cults throughout
previous D&D publications, so Matt is referencing pre-existing Vecna lore. The party tries to get more info out of Daxio,
but he’s a devoted cultist who doesn’t care about his life or his own suffering. But then they threaten to cleanse him with
holy light, and that actually scares him - after all, getting purified and restored might actually
sever his connection with Vecna’s eternal reward. So he confirms that he basically knows nothing,
but he also confirms that the Briarwoods’ ritual was performed too soon.
They were waiting for Winter’s Crest, because that’s when the walls between
planes are the weakest. He still hopes that the ritual was successful,
though he has no idea, he wasn’t there. Uriel finally urges them to execute Daxio,
and so Grog cuts off the prisoner’s head. Also, Grog gets an unnatural surge of adrenaline
when he uses Craven Edge to kill Daxio. That’s probably fine. They ask Uriel for a reward, and they get
5,000 gold for catching Daxio within just a couple of hours, before a
bounty was even issued. So, that gold will be delivered directly to
Greyskull Keep. As they leave the palace, Vox Machina decides
to blow off some steam. TALIESIN: Let's start a pub crawl. TALIESIN and MARISHA: Pub crawl! LAURA: I like it a lot.
TRAVIS: You are a smart one. LAURA: What's the closest pub here? MATT: Who's leading the pub crawl? SAM: Wait, hold on. (high-pitched cries) I'm Yelping it. (laughter) SAM: No? They eventually find themselves at a fancy
pub, where they run into Gilmore! As they party, he conjures a Heroes’ Feast
for them. Vex also picks his brain about Vecna, and
he confirms that Vecna tried to become a god centuries ago, and while he was thwarted,
he almost certainly hasn’t given up that dream. The party does some drinking, and Keyleth
gets very drunk and very sick. Vax takes Gilmore aside for a private moment…
and gently lets him know that he cares about Gilmore, but he loves someone else. And even though he doesn’t think she loves
him back, it’s still not fair to string Gilmore along when his heart is someone else’s. Gilmore takes it like a champ, he’s very
kind about it. The party goes home, and discovers Dr. Dranzel
and the rest of his troop is already at the Keep, waiting for them! Here, Dr. Dranzel divulges a little bit more about
the heist he had proposed earlier in the night. He says that General Krieg’s house - he
doesn’t know it’s General Krieg’s house, but he says that this house was bought about
a year ago by a private collector, but nobody has seen that collector in a couple of months. Dranzel’s team just wants a cut of whatever
Vox Machina finds when they go in, and they eventually negotiate an 80-20 split in favor
of Vox Machina. Vax and Vex are really not sold on this plan,
and Keyleth is basically too drunk to follow the conversation, but the rest of them talk
themselves into agreeing with the plan. Sure, they’re going to check out the house
as a “safety concern.” The band crashes at the Keep for the night,
and Kaylie goes with Scanlan to his room. And… the flirtatious banter
takes a strange turn. MATT: “You know I've heard most of these
stories… from my mother, Sybil.” SAM: Who? MATT: “Sybil. A fine gnomish lass, it was some years ago,
she came across a smooth, silver-tongued flautist who blew through like the wind and disappeared.” (gasping) MATT: “Took her innocence with a promise,
then vanished just as suddenly. Left her a child to raise on the income of
a quilter, she did.” At this point, you see her stand up, and she
begins to draw a small blade from her side. SAM: She's going to fight me! MARISHA: Oh my god! MATT: Her face is hardened and still as she
stares at you. You see a slight tremble in her hand. “This day, Scanlan Shorthalt, I beat you
at your own song. Now I come to take your dignity. Now take up your sword.” Yes, that’s right. We mentioned in the last episode that Scanlan’s
backstory is modeled after Eminem? Well, it turns out Kaylie is Scanlan’s Hailie. Well, it’s not a one-to-one comparison,
and that’s for a good reason: Matt didn’t do that on purpose, it’s just a freaky coincidence. But let’s drill down a bit more on this twist,
and how it demonstrates Matt’s approach to structuring the Vox Machina campaign. Matt pulls elements of all of his characters’
backstories into the campaign, and we’ll make a whole other video about that in the
next couple of months. But while some of the players, like Percy
but not *only* Percy, have backstories that lend themselves really well to months-long
storylines like the Briarwood arc, others like Scanlan don’t have the same built-in
references to villains or major events. But that doesn’t mean that Scanlan can’t
also have part of his storyline show up in the campaign. And because the folks in his backstory aren’t,
you know, dangerous world-ending threats who demand several sessions worth of attention,
a storyline like the introduction of and potential reconciliation with Kaylie can weave in and
out of the campaign without pulling focus from the monsters and mayhem the party will
already be dealing with. So Matt can introduce and include that storyline
while still continuing to move other story arcs forward. But let’s also be clear: Sam didn’t create
Kaylie, she isn’t part of his backstory, and just like Scanlan, he had no idea she
existed, although neither Sam nor Scanlan would be particularly surprised to find out
she existed. Given Scanlan’s lecherous lifestyle, it’s
not a difficult leap to assume that he might have some unclaimed offspring out there. But if you’re Matt Mercer, and you want
to include Scanlan’s secret love child as a character in the campaign, then you would
ask yourself, well, what would that look like? What’s the most dramatic way to bring that
character into the story? Well, there are a few different options. One of them is what we’ll call the “Three
Men and a Baby” scenario, where the mother drops the baby off with the father, and now
the father and his weirdo friend group have to raise the baby. And yes, that absolutely could have happened,
I’m sure Vox Machina would have done their best to make sure that baby was taken care
of, and was healthy and happy. But they wouldn’t have *kept* the baby,
or at least not taken the baby with them, because unlike the characters in that film,
these are D&D adventurers. They’re not gonna throw the baby into a
papoose and go on adventures, right? These players would never, ever take a baby
on an adventure with them. Especially not more than once
during Campaign 2. The next option is what we’ll call the “Matchstick
Men” scenario, or the “Elf” scenario if you prefer, where Scanlan’s child shows
up as an adolescent or an adult, and wants to get to know Scanlan better. Again, that could be interesting, but then,
ultimately you just have someone who wants to join Vox Machina. And as we saw with Kynan, historically Vox
Machina has not been keen on having inexperienced civilians join them on missions. But here, we have the *most* dramatic possible
scenario. Kaylie poses as someone who isn’t related
to Scanlan, and if he commences with his usual lecherous behavior, she basically gets confirmation
about what kind of man he is. Then, she can use that to get him into a delicate
position, and murder him. Because of course, D&D is a combat game, and
so Kaylie is ready to battle Scanlan to the death, and Matt is prepared to roll initiative
if Scanlan can’t prevent Kaylie from attacking him. But Scanlan isn’t heartless. And we get to see him react to Kaylie,
and offer… an apology. SAM: I didn't know you existed, and my heart
is breaking a hundred times now for not knowing it. Every year that you've been alive is a year
I could have been a better person and known someone who could have made me a better person,
and I'm only sorry that I didn't know it. If there's anything I can do for you from
now on– if you are truly my blood, I will, because among my many faults, ego is certainly
one of them, and knowing you're part of me makes me love you even more.
(Laughter) Matt has Sam roll a Persuasion check, but
has Kaylie against him, probably an Insight check on her part. And even though Sam rolls a 32, she’s *also*
a bard, and her result is also pretty high. So his effort doesn’t work, and she goes
to attack him. But for her attack…
she rolls a natural 1. And the way Matt describes this is that she
goes to stab Scanlan, but all the strength leaves her and she falls into a hug instead. She’s not forgiving him, but she’s conflicted,
and she’s confused. She leaves his room to go for a walk and collect
her thoughts. There’s a lesson here as well. Matt ultimately has no idea how the Kaylie
storyline will resolve, or how long it will take. And that’s part of why he’s so willing to
leave so much of it up to the rolls of the dice. This is what I think a lot of Game Masters
struggle with, we have these ideas for cool storylines, but honestly? All we can really control is the first scene,
the beginning of an arc or the beginning of a session or the first round of a fight. And honestly, we’re lucky if we can even
get through that without the players derailing it. And that’s okay, because if we surrender
ourselves to the idea that we don’t control as much as we might like to think, then we
can actually allow ourselves to allow stories to move in ways we don’t expect. Trust me, Matt will put his thumb on the scale
in plenty of ways, which we’ll discuss in future episodes, but he also knows when to
give up control and just let the dice have their way with his master plots, and especially
with his subplots. The next morning, Scanlan asks Dr. Dranzel
if he knew about Kaylie, but doesn’t give up the secret just in case he doesn’t know
- and it looks like, no, he didn’t know, no. Also, Vex finds out the 5,000 gold was delivered
before they got home, and Dr. Dranzel and his crew “helpfully” held onto it. You know, just in case somebody robbed…
the Keep. So they bring it out, and Vex sits there and
counts the gold, and sure enough, the band eventually hands over another satchel of gold. You know, you gotta *separate* the gold, just
in case somebody robbed the Keep with armed guards posted on the walls. They prepare to go to the house, but Keyleth
really isn’t on board - and in fact, seems to think the others are hiding something from
her, some detail they aren’t divulging. Interestingly, that’s just what the party
felt about Dranzel in the last episode, and while, yes, there was *one* minor detail they
hadn’t heard yet, that nobody had seen the new owner in a few months… well, that was just enough for them to rationalize
the mission to themselves. And it’s not that those rationalizations
are *terrible,* but I think they all kind of know that they are still going to take
some gold, despite their protests that they’re just checking out the house. Keyleth hasn’t made that same leap, almost
like, and bare with me here… they actually don’t have a very good reason to go here,
they just think it would be fun and they kinda want to just get some treasure? Now, that doesn’t mean they’re actively
hiding something from her, as she seems to believe, so while the way she expresses her
frustration might be a bit misplaced, I think the frustration itself is reasonable - because she doesn’t
see how this adventure might be a good idea. But she reluctantly agrees to go along with it. However, while I can see how they’ve basically
talked themselves into agreeing to a heist, I can also acknowledge that it’s not a terrible
idea to make sure it’s safe. Because as they discuss the house, they *do*
reference the dragon they slayed, and the wall with the eyes in the gems that spoke
to them; they do remember the last time they were here, and they know some hinky stuff
was going on. And this is just me going out on a limb…
but I honestly think that *that* was the entire point of this mission, like, that is why Matt
put this mission in front of them. They broke into Krieg’s house at *least*
a year earlier in the real-world - probably longer ago, actually. But what happened in that house, and what
they saw, is actually going to be relevant to the next story arc of the campaign. So, before Matt deploys that new arc, he wants
to make sure the previous relevant adventure is fresh in their minds. And rather than just dropping it into the
middle of a “Previously On Vox Machina” recap, like a TV show might do, he just integrates
the “Previously On” into the story. Now, they had just released the “Story of
Vox Machina” video a couple of weeks earlier, so maybe it was more fresh on their minds
than it might have been otherwise. But that probably isn’t true in your campaigns,
so when you find yourself in a similar situation, where you want to make sure the party remembers
a few very specific details from an earlier adventure, then you can just do
what Matt does here. Because I maintain that this entire adventure,
to go and break into this house and see what’s going on, is just an excuse to just jog the
players’ memories about the fact that General Krieg, a member of the Tal’dorei Council,
was secretly a dragon. And the fact that they slayed that dragon,
and saw some weird orbs in the wall. And it worked - as I said, the players spend
the entire episode frequently bringing up the four orbs in the wall, the eye that appeared
in one of them, the fact that all those orbs shattered at once, and then, obviously, General
Krieg turning into a blue dragon Brimscythe and attacking them, and the fact that they
had to kill him. And of course, they remember Grog rage-looting
from Brimscythe’s hoard. And presumably, that loot is still in there… So they might as well just
go check out the house... They hop the gate, and they decide to let
Pike pick the door, because again, Vax and Vex aren’t exactly on the same page as some
of the rest of the party members about this whole plan, so almost as a quiet act of rebellion,
Vax lets Pike pick the lock. Although Liam, I think, also just wants to
see what happens, much like he wanted to see how Matt might explain Grog’s flash of insight
in the previous episode. But thanks to Scanlan’s inspiration, Pike
*is* actually able to open the lock. They enter and start exploring, and here are
some highlights. There is a meal on the kitchen table that
is molded over, so whatever happened here, the owner didn’t expect it - and given that the table
was set for one, he was also apparently alone. The carpet in the foyer is magically trapped,
and creates a magical cage around Scanlan, which they have to dispel. They find no wealth in the house - it seems
like the new owner was in the process of moving and hadn’t gotten that far yet. They enter a room that’s still untouched
from Krieg’s days in the house, including mythological tapestries on the walls, and
a bust of J'mon Sa Ord, the enigmatic ruler of the desert city of Ank’Harel. This city is actually where the Clasp was
going to send Riskel Daxio, and Matt reminds them that it’s where their favorite guard,
Jarett, is from. Ank’Harel is *also* going to be important
to the campaign soon, so Matt has been adding multiple references to it across these past
couple of games to help make it feel like it’s part of the world, someplace that they’re
already aware of before it becomes plot relevant. Also, in future games, Matt will more consistently
use they/them pronouns for J’mon, and while he doesn’t use that language yet in this
game, he gets very close, describing J’mon as ambiguous, with features that can’t be
made out yet - but he’ll refine the language around J’mon and other genderfluid or agender
characters as the show continues. They also find a golden tea set, and a vaguely-humanoid
but slightly elongated skull - almost elvish but with sharpened teeth - with a rough emerald
embedded in the right eye socket. Percy examines the skull, and Matt gives just
a little bit of detail about it, to hint at its magic without divulging any details that
Percy wouldn’t have yet. MATT: It's heavier than you expected it would
be and– TALIESIN: Oh god, it's going to talk to me,
isn't it? MATT: There's a part of you that– like a
slight cold chill runs down your spine. TALIESIN: A recognizable cold chill, or a
brand-new cold chill? MATT: No, just like every person has that
little part in the back of their head that says, “This probably isn't a good idea,
but whatever.” (laughter) TALIESIN: I hate you so much! MATT: So, you're holding it in your hand,
what do you want to do? LIAM: You're like a magnet for evil. TALIESIN: I'm a little evil magnet, I know. Percy also notices some very faint movement
inside the gem. Probably not a big deal. They go back to a secret passage they remember,
and walk through an illusory wall, down some stairs, and into a teleportation circle. They step through it and appear in a mountain
cave full of gold. They find evidence that some sort of large
creatures have burrowed through the space, making holes they don’t recognize from their
last visit here. Then they find an old man, frozen in ice. This is the new owner, he apparently had no idea
what he was doing and just got himself killed. Just bad luck. They start digging gold out of the hoard, and
almost immediately, the ground starts rumbling. And then, bursting out of the ground, is a
huge worm-like monster. A purple worm-like monster. A purple worm, if you will. If you’re not familiar, purple worms are
some iconic D&D monsters, they’re huge and deadly - and this is the first time the party
has ever fought one. Or it *will* be… in the next session, because
that’s the end of the episode. Thank you so much for watching. We’ll be back
in two weeks with episode 39, “Omens.” This is a Very Important Episode, we’re
gonna have a *lot* to say about it, so look forward to that one in two weeks. In the meantime, I’ve got new videos every
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Demystified” are going to circle the subjects of backgrounds and backstories a lot, and
so before we get there, I recommend you check out this video about how you can handle
backgrounds in your 5e games. Until next time, play fair and have fun!
