Critical Role Review: Campaign 2 Episode 19
By: I.am.no.Man.
Episode 19: The Gentleman's Path
[arve url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6jE3T_ooKw&t=29s" /]Missed last week's review? Read it here!
Recap
The Mighty Nein make a visit to their favorite shady underbelly boss-man The Gentleman. Arriving at the Evening Nip Tavern, the group head down to the secret entrance and happen upon an impromptu Fight Club. Beau and Jester get super into the fight, while Nott and Molly make bets on who will win. Seconds after the fight ends, the still-hyped up Beau and Jester decide to start their own fight there in the middle of the floor. Maybe a little over-excited, Jester slams Beau with a face full of Necrotic magic inflicting some pretty hefty wounds. A bit shaken, Beau hits back with a stunning strike that shocks Jester making her unable to move. Beau then lands hit after critical hit on the disabled Jester, knocking her out within seconds. A bit dazed, and still full of adrenaline, Beau and Jester join their companions at the Gentleman’s table.The Gentleman makes the Nein an offer. Track down a friend of his named Ophelia Mardoon in a town called Shady Creek Run. Help her ‘absolve her current mire of complications’ and bring her back to Zadash. Or The Nein could take on another mission, investigate one of the Gentleman’s safehouses in the swamp town in the north that has mysteriously gone silent. Find his contact named Fabron Keys, and figure out what happened to the safehouse and everyone working in it. (Possibly monsters…it’s definitely swamp monsters.) Though the details are a little vague, the Nein ambitiously take on both tasks, voting to stop in the swamp lands first. The Gentleman accepts and wishes the adventurers good luck on their journey.Gathering their supplies and belongings into their cart, the Nein set off towards the swamp lands, preparing to spend several nights on the road. One evening on the road, Caleb and Nott take watch in the middle of the night. Caleb senses something is amiss and perceives a handful of creatures heading towards their campfire. He rouses the others out of a deep sleep and they realize they are surrounded by a few goblins, wolves, and ogres. The nein leap into action, defending against a surprise attack. Nott goes into sneak mode, blending in with the goblins and trying to distract them, while also secretly attacking them. Caleb hits one of the ogres with a clutch spell that slows the ogre’s movements, making him incredibly vulnerable to attack. Yasha’s rage sends a dark energy enveloping her. Black, skeletal wings shoot out from her back, the white tips of her hair go completely jet black, and her eyes are dark black holes. She rushes in with her sword drawn and carves the ogre to pieces. Beau takes on the other ogre and two wolves on her own, taking heavy damage, but holding her own. Molly, Jester and Fjord take on the other wolves and goblins, protecting Yasha and Beau as they take on the big bads. Fjord gets the final hit on the last ogre, releasing a booming eldritch blast through its body.The group recoups and recovers, making sure Nott is ok after having to attack other goblins. She assures the group she is fine and tells more of her story. She speaks of feeling so out of place amongst goblins, never feeling right in her body, and being horrified at everyday goblin life. She never found a job in her old tribe that she was good at, so they placed her with the tribe’s torturer to work as his assistant. She hated the work, but ended up befriending a Halfling prisoner. He taught her many things about the outside world, including everything she knows about alchemy and potion making. After he taught her everything he knew, he asked her to kill him, put him out of his misery. She could not bring herself to do this, and decided to drink herself into oblivion. In her drunken state, she created a distraction in the prison, freed the Halfling man, and made a run for it. She has no idea what happened to the man, as they escaped in different directions and she has never looked back.Once things have settled down again, the Nein return to their beds and try and get some rest before the morning starts. In the morning, a light rain begins to rain down over their campsite, waking the adventurers. They quietly gather their belongings and prepare to hit the road once again.
Review
This was a really great episode. I honestly wasn’t expecting much from this episode. I thought the group would take the whole episode to decide between the gentleman and the legionnaires, but they really leaped at the Gentleman’s offer. Which I am on board with. He seems to have some pretty interesting work for them. I am excited that they opted to visit the swamp first. I always jump at the chance of monster battles.The character stories and interactions this episode were AMAZING. Yasha is showing her truly dark, badass side and I am all here for it. The description of her fallen Aasimar rage was so epic. The dark wings, black eyes, and pure power she shows when she takes down the ogres made for such a cool image. I can’t wait to see the fan art. Nott’s little backstory was utterly heartbreaking. You just want to make everything ok for this tiny goblin girl. I laughed a lot during the descriptions and stories of living with her tribe of goblins. The baby-snatching, cannibalistic, brutal society, how Nott learned alchemy from a prisoner, being forced to work for a torturer. All such great backstory.The midnight fight with the goblins, ogres and wolves was a nice refresher for the second half of the episode. Caleb shows off his skills again with a perfectly timed Slow spell that handicapped one of the ogres for the entire battle. Nott’s reaction to being surrounded by goblins was great, playing along with the attack while taking out enemies on the sly. Her and Caleb doing one of their ‘special tricks’ together, Modern Literature, was one of the highlights of the episode. Caleb playing dead while Jester went into a panic over not being able to heal him had me laughing out loud. I am looking forward to next week’s episode and the possibility of fighting some cool swamp monsters!
