Critical Role Review: C2 Episode 100
By: I.Am.No.Man
Episode 100: Hunted at Sea
Recap
The Mighty Nein face off against a monstrously intimidating foe. It appears they have drawn the attention of a beast out of legend, the ship sinking Dragon Turtle.
Fjord commands his ship's crew, firing cannonballs, fireballs, all the balls at this thing but the Dragon Turtle still manages to land a devastating blow to the ship. Jester manages to capture the beast in a lucky Polymorph spell and the fight is temporarily halted.
Though Jester's spell changed the Dragon Turtle into a regular sea turtle, the crew is still on edge. This has only bought them a brief respite. Caduceus spots the morphed sea turtle keeping easy pace with the ship and the Nein begin a frantic round of planning.
Somehow, our dear adventurers end up with the brilliant plan to...water ski...behind the ship...to attempt a better polymorph on the tiny Dragon Turtle. Maybe not the most practical plan, but you can't discredit their creativity. Caduceus, Caleb and Jester tie ropes to themselves and jump off the back of the ship. And so, by miracle of miracles, Caleb manages to locate a regular sized sea turtle while inventing water skiing and lands his polymorph spell. The Dragon Turtle, turned sea turtle, turned sea slug slowly drops to the ocean floor while the Mighty Nein make a sneaky sea escape.
With Fjord's fearless leading, the one hour head start on the dragon turtle, and the Wildmother's blessing, the Nein safely make it to Rumblecusp isle in time to prepare for TravelerCon! While exploring the island, Caleb discovers a settlement further inland.
The Nein decide to be friendly vacationers and set off to investigate the unknown settlement. Heeding the Traveler's warning that there are dangerous things on this island, the Nein are on high alert. The creepy feeling of being watched doesn't stop Yasha from stopping to smell the flowers...or voraciously eating them. Apparently this island is more like Australia than Jamaica; even the flowers are out to kill you. One sniff of a gorgeous purple flower and Yasha is overcome by an insatiable hunger and stuffs the entire things down her throat. Luckily she's tough and doesn't suffer anything worse than some spicy indigestion.
Exciting culinary adventures aside, the Nein can't shake the feeling something is watching. Caduceus spots eyes in the trees just as two large shapes lumber into view. Before anyone can yell bear, the forest erupts into commotion. Three nasty displacer beasts have been hunting the Nein, and now two bipedal ax wielding bear creatures begin attacking! The Nein barely have time to blink before the displacer beasts have been mauled to oblivion.
The were-bear forms shift back into their humanoid forms. One, a surprisingly hairy elfin female named Jaina, and other younger human male named Pono introduce themselves to our companions. In a slightly strange exchange of information, the Nein deduce that the village is called Vo and is led by a dazzling one-legged druid woman named Viridian who all worship the volcano God Vokodo. For some strange reason (Kill Bill sirens activate) the villagers have a difficult time remembering their lives previous to coming to the island.
Review
Boy did I miss Critical Role. I know you did too. The live viewership for episode 100 was off the charts! Viewership peaked at around 111,000 by the start of the episode. And what a way to celebrate episode 100 than with a Kaiju level battle! Well...sort of.
You know me, I'm a sucker for those edge of your seat, life or death, nailbiting fights. This fight was not one of those. Now, that's not to say it wasn't thrilling, engaging, facepalm-level hilarious. It may just be that we are getting to see the Nein finally getting into those God-level abilities now that they've reached level 12. This only means that we're going to get some epic ringers of battles in the near future. Plus, this campaign has been leaning more into the continent consuming war, espionage, and political thriller story than the Chroma Conclave epic that was last campaign. I guess we get the best of both worlds with this campaign! Heady, role play heavy mind games and big bad boss battles sprinkled in just to keep things light.
With all the excitement of the first half of the session over in a flash (we haven't seen the last of treasure hungry Dragon Turtle yet!), I was thinking the second half would devolve into the usual, camp and plan that happens after big battles. To my surprise though, the Nein decide to explore the island and immediately get in over their heads.
Yasha has a darling moment with her flower. Nott and Beau continue their playful competitive banter- though no one gets shot in the ass this time. Maybe it's the fact we haven't had a new episode of Critical Role in three months, but I really missed all the role play and character interaction. It's definitely one of my favorite things about this style of game play. It makes these character feels oh so real. Everyone has really fallen into a beautiful stride with their characters and even after months away jump right back into their skin.
The Nein quickly fall in with the two Vo were-bear scouts and are brought in to meet the mysterious cult leader Viridian. Now...i know Mercer has said he doesn't want too much crossover between campaign 1 and 2 characters....and I KNOW that more than one long lost, one legged, half-elven, druid can exist in the world. But. Mercer likes his puzzles and Easter eggs. Let me believe for just a little while that the Nein have somehow found Keyleth's missing mother. We'll just ahve to see where the story goes! Also, what's with all the creepy Vokodo/phoenix/volcano time warpy weirdness that's going on at this place? So many mysteries to unpack next week! Hopefully Jester doesn't bring all of the traveler's minions to an island only to be taken over by a bigger weirder volcano bird cult!
Don't Miss It!
Critical Role has three new program episodes coming out this week. First up, Narrative Telephone! The long awaited tale from Eldritch Immortal Taliesin Jaffe airs Tuesday at 4 pm on Twitch.
Next, another all new episode of campaign 2 with our beloved bumbleheads The Mighty Nein. Never one's to take the easy route, I can't wait to see what new adventures they get themselves into this week.
Lastly, a new critical chill soundrack, Mighty Vibes Vol. 3 will drop on Twitch this Friday. Also, if you're into the musical side of the Critical Role Empire, two new character playlists were dropped during the hiatus. Both Yasha and Caleb have their part 2 playlists available on Critrole.com and on Critical Role's Spotify channel.
This section can't end without a mega shout out to lore master Dani Carr for the 4 part epic recounting of the campaign so far. You can find it HERE. Thank you Miss Dani!
It feels so good to be able to say this again, Don't worry IT'S ALMOST THURSDAY!
