Critical Role Campaign 4, Episode 2: Celestial Horrors and Powerful Houses Emerge as Potential Threats

Critical Role's fourth campaign continues on its strong start, with DM Brennan Lee Mulligan and a cast of 13 players weaving through a dense storyline filled with emerging threats to a still disconnected cast of characters. Last week's debut episode introduced audience members to the world of Araman through the death of Thjazi Fang, an adventurer turned criminal hanged on trumped-up charges. Critical Role's cast were introduced one-by-one as bystanders to Thjazi's funeral, all tied to the adventurer's past either as old comrades, family, or foes.

This week's episode began to tackle the question as to why Thjazi died. The opening episode established that Thjazi died on dubious charges, with a failed escape attempt thwarted by someone "on the inside." However, who brought those trumped up charges and who betrayed him remained unclear. While we weren't given explicit answers in this episode, several themes started to emerge that seemed to indicate that Thjazi may have been a victim of loftier political machinations.

Broadly speaking, the episode was divided into three broad storylines. The first follows Thjazi's former comrades (he was the member of the Torn Banner, a mercenary group who fought on the losing side of the Falconer's Rebellion) as they investigate how their escape plan went awry. The plan was supposed to utilize a magical glyph planted on Thjazi's person that he'd use to Misty Step into a nearby cart that would deliver him to safety. However, the glyph was never delivered due to an attack on Thjazi's longtime pixie partner Thimble (Laura Bailey) and was replaced with a decoy meant to trick Azune Nayar (Luis Carazo). Azune, Thimble, and their allies realized that two members of their conspiracy never arrived at their destination - the smuggler Casimir Gavendale and the getaway man Cyd Pridesire. As Casimir was a member of the Crow Keepers and crow feathers were found at Thjazi's ransacked hideaway, the party suspects that Casimir may have betrayed them and stolen the Stone of Nightsong, an elven artifact that Thjazi and Thimble stole from Vaelus (Ashley Johnson). When a group goes to confront the Crow Keepers, hostilities erupt, setting up the first true combat of the campaign in the next episode.

The second storyline involves the machinations of the Sundered Houses, the noble houses of Dol-Makjar. Already major power players within the city, the Sundered Houses are quickly moving to consolidate power and remove potential obstacles in their path. Over the course of the episode, we learn that the Sundered Houses are closing branches of the city guard and replacing them with forces loyal to them and forcing the head of the magical Penteveral college to resign by threatening to revoke their license to practice magic on school grounds. House Tachonis is also actively seeking Occtis Tachonis (Alex Ward) for unknown reasons, with rival House Royce seeking the young necromancer mainly to thwart the powerful House. Sir Julien Davinos (Matt Mercer) is sent on a mission to retrieve Occtis, which seems to at least temporarily align him with the other cast members.

The final emerging storyline involves the remnants of the gods, killed seventy years before the start of the series. A strange silver box was retrieved by Thaisha Lloy (Aabria Iyengar) at Thjazi's behest prior to his death. When opened at the funeral, a strange fragmented mask inside the box disappears in a swirling mist. Museum curator and Thjazi associate Bolaire (Taliesin Jaffe) takes the box and investigates alongside Murray Mag'Nesson (Marisha Ray). They discover that the box was the coffin for the celestial Olbalad, who served as the Angel of Death for the slain halfling god. Celestials are dangerous in the world of Araman - once the gods were killed, the celestials created by the god went feral and became terrible destructive forces across the land. One such celestial now resides in the bowels of House Halovar, where its blood is harvested to use as Filament for the Candescent Creed's rituals. Wicander Halovar (Sam Riegel), the pure-hearted scion of the house is introduced to this angel at the end of the episode, with his grandmother introducing the creature as Wicander's grandfather.

Although the amount of information that gets shoveled at both the players and the audience is overwhelming at times, I remain impressed by the steady pace of this campaign. Brennan Lee Mulligan runs a tight ship, keeping scenes moving along while also leaving proper space for his players to roleplay and explore the world. One contrast between his style and Matt Mercer's is that Mulligan will often drop players into various scenes instead of allowing them total freedom to dictate what their characters do or where they travel to. This requires a lot of trust between the players and the DM, but it also makes the show feel much tighter than some of the meandering episodes of Critical Role's past campaigns. I wonder how much of this is a consequence of needing to juggle screen time for 13 players and how much of this will be a natural hallmark of Critical Role's fourth campaign.

Two episodes in and Critical Role's fourth campaign still has me hooked. There are still plenty of pieces that haven't come together and I'm curious as to how the three loosely-defined adventuring groups will eventually come together and what their initial quests will be. This may feel like a slow burn, although we'll apparently gain some clarity over the next two episodes.

 

[Charlaquin]

I also think from the description he's violating the rule that you start an adventure with a Big Bang,

I’m sorry, is a public execution and a failed rescue attempt not a big bang?? Certainly seems like a bigger bang than Campaigns 1 through 3 started off with.

 

[Celebrim]

I’m sorry, is a public execution and a failed rescue attempt not a big bang?? Certainly seems like a bigger bang than Campaigns 1 through 3 started off with.

It's an emotional bang, not a dramatic one. It's meaningful to the characters. But as others have noted, this sort of bang works better if you are invested in the man being executed or the characters trying to rescue him.

The whole city experiencing a natural disaster, an invasion of monsters, or a civil war might have been a bigger bang.

Start with a city wide battle that each team is involved in, with different teams belonging to different factions and big broad action - houses collapsing, the city on fire, units moving down the streets, people getting murdered on both sides, wizardy and arcane war and all the horrors thereof. Then have your execution and failed rescue attempt and your big exposition dump about it what it all means.

 

[wicked cool]

Feels somewhat like the beginning of Dragonlance where spoilers the group splits and the audience will be following 3 plots
For those of you who dropped but followed say campaign 2 what made 2 more enjoyable?

For me so far this is hard core I want to dive in and Brennan is bringing it (winter soldier/pick your serious action flicks aka French connection while campaign 1 at times was serious but also felt like an Arnold/bruce Willis movie at times while campaign 3 for me just went into barrier peaks/off the rails Snyder universe
It’s early though

 

[Charlaquin]

It's an emotional bang, not a dramatic one.

These things are synonymous to me, but I understand what you’re trying to say.

It's meaningful to the characters. But as others have noted, this sort of bang works better if you are invested in the man being executed or the characters trying to rescue him.

I mean, the point is to get you invested in the characters who care about the man being executed. Because they’re the reason you’ll care about anything else that’s going on.

The whole city experiencing a natural disaster, an invasion of monsters, or a civil war might have been a bigger bang.

Start with a city wide battle that each team is involved in, with different teams belonging to different factions and big broad action - houses collapsing, the city on fire, units moving down the streets, people getting murdered on both sides, wizardy and arcane war and all the horrors thereof.

See, that all seems completely pointless and uninteresting if I don’t know or care about the characters involved in it yet. Generally, you want to build emotional investment in the characters first, and then the audience will naturally care about the world, because characters they care about exist within it. Generally worldbuilding advice for people writing fictional settings is that you can’t make the audience care about the setting, but you can’t make them care about characters who care about the setting. And YMMV, but I think Brennan and the rest of the cast are doing a commendable job of making me care about these characters.

Then have your execution and failed rescue attempt and your big exposition dump about it what it all means.

Again, I’m not really seeing an exposition dump. I’m seeing lore reveals happening as they become relevant to the characters, through those characters’ interactions with that lore. I understand if it’s too dense and happening too fast for some viewers. But it’s not an exposition dump.

 

[Celebrim]

See, that all seems completely pointless and uninteresting if I don’t know or care about the characters involved in it yet. Generally, you want to build emotional investment in the characters first, and then the audience will naturally care about the world, because characters they care about exist within it.

That's a novelist point of view. It's not normally how you write for an RPG. In an RPG the players are invested in the characters but you need to get them invested in and excited about the setting.

Of course, the problem Critical Role has is that this is both an RPG and a play with an audience. But I would think that a lot of the reason to watch an RPG as a play is vicarious player character commitment and getting the audience to care about the player characters to me is get them in big action scene and let them be awesome.

But it seems like from this thread we have competing aesthetics going on - different reasons why members of the audience find watching an RPG interesting.

Generally worldbuilding advice for people writing fictional settings is that you can’t make the audience care about the setting, but you can’t (sic) make them care about characters who care about the setting.

And again, that's a novelist perspective, not an RPG perspective. That's how you write novels, not how you write RPG adventures.

 

[TiQuinn]

Survived with quite a bit war trauma. If you're loose with the rules you can use death saves for other things than death that are just as bad.

Possibly. I’m just saying - probably not a best practice for your home table to start characters off taking death saves even if all you intend to do is saddle them with an unexpected trauma. Word might get round that you’re one of those abusive DMs.

 

[Charlaquin]

That's a novelist point of view. It's not normally how you write for an RPG. In an RPG the players are invested in the characters but you need to get them invested in and excited about the setting.

Of course, the problem Critical Role has is that this is both an RPG and a play with an audience. But I would think that a lot of the reason to watch an RPG as a play is vicarious player character commitment and getting the audience to care about the player characters to me is get them in big action scene and let them be awesome.

That’s the thing though, Critical Role is entertainment media. The players are part of the cast, the audience is passive. The choice of how to start may arguably not have been ideal for a home game, but it was IMO a very good choice for an actual play. I mean, it’s clear that the players are all much more familiar with the setting and lore than we are already. These aren’t choices being made about how to get the players invested, they’re about how to get the audience invested.

But it seems like from this thread we have competing aesthetics going on - different reasons why members of the audience find watching an RPG interesting.

Most definitely! And, again, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with not caring for this approach.

And again, that's a novelist perspective, not an RPG perspective. That's how you write novels, not how you write RPG adventures.

I mean, I disagree. In RPG adventures, you get the players invested in the world by getting them invested in the NPCs in it. But, it is certainly the case that the approach the Critical Role cast seems to be taking is getting the audience invested in the campaign by getting them invested in the PCs. If what you like about Critical Role is being a fly on the wall for a “real” game of D&D, I can see this being a move away from what you’re in it for. Though, I would argue the show hasn’t really been that since Campaign 1. The longer the show has gone on, the more they’ve moved away from that candid camera type approach and towards creating a more polished viewer experience. And if you primarily watch Critical Role for the characters and stories, like it’s a fantasy fiction audio play podcast that happens to be heavily improvised, then this is probably the best execution of that we’ve seen from Critical Role.

 

[Charlaquin]

Possibly. I’m just saying - probably not a best practice for your home table to start characters off taking death saves even if all you intend to do is saddle them with an unexpected trauma. Word might get round that you’re one of those abusive DMs.

I don’t think Critical Role has ever been a good example of best practices for your home game. Indeed, I think trying to emulate Critical Role in your own game has always been highly ill-advised.

 

[Elvish Lore]

Ok, finished ep 2. Yea, it's tedious and slow but it's supposed to be 120+ episodes, I'm fine with building emotional investment in the characters first before the campaign flings them headlong into danger. There's a few people here expecting Tik-Tok videos which, you know, okay.

Lots of weird 'should' statements above about campaign building, rpgs, actual plays, definitions of exposition, etc. I'm not so sure I would go into this with any expectations or a list of 'shoulds' given these hugely successful critical role actual plays aren't anything we've ever witnessed in the history of the hobby - a strange combination of railroad-ish storytelling, character exploration, game-driven adventure, and performance art. And all this while catering to an audience who want their favorite actors to have their 'moments'.

Would I allow my players to go on and on and on with recycling sentiments they've already expressed in prior scenes? I wouldn't. And as a GM I would certainly have included more action beats. But Critical Role is a different thing altgother - and it's going to work for some, and for others it won't at all. That's certainly evinced by this thread.

I'll keep listening for now. Most of the cast seems to be doing really good so far but I'm here for Mulligan in particular, and he's doing great so far.

 

[TiQuinn]

I don’t think Critical Role has ever been a good example of best practices for your home game. Indeed, I think trying to emulate Critical Role in your own game has always been highly ill-advised.

I think that gets a little muddy. On the one hand, it’s clearly a much more narrative game with paid professional actors who are also allowing that story to unfold in long form. The level of detail they have prepared both from the DM and player sides are absolutely not necessary. Nobody there is going to gripe about the rules; everyone at that table knows this is about creating dramatic moments.

On the other hand, you can find probably a bajillion interviews now with both Mercer or Mulligan (sometimes both!) where they discuss tips for home games. They acknowledge the differences but they get into what they think works in general. And generally, I think there are plenty of things to take away. There’s no problem with starting off a campaign or a session in media res. I think the way Mulligan lets the lore slip out in bits and pieces is fantastic and applies well at home. We’ve yet to see a lot of rules in actual use so far, and that mini-fight might’ve been the first (I actually don’t think it was really combat at all - rolls with some stage dressing) - but I do prefer it when the APs work within the game rules. That instance was a little iffy to me. Whether it’s a best practice or not, I think a lot of people will say don’t make a roll if it doesn’t really matter, and I have a hard time believing that roll mattered.