Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I must confess I’m still a little shell shocked, as my apartment caught fire early yesterday morning, resulting in one of the most exhausting days of my life. Fortunately, I’ve still got a bed and I’ve still got my laptop, so goddamnit, the show must go on. Nonetheless, I’ve decided to at least treat myself to a comfort food project: a fresh episode of Vox Machina, wherein our heroes last found themselves stranded across multiple planes, the gnomes and Grog muddling through the mortal plane while our other heroes braved the Fey Realm.
With Grog having lost his strength and the twins nearing a transposed elven city, it’s clear we’re pushing forward on a variety of personal arcs in satisfyingly character-appropriate ways: Grog must learn how to define himself outside of his power, while Vex and Vax must grapple with whatever regrets still linger regarding their flight from home. As for my own campaign, things have been proceeding more or less smoothly through the second act finale of my overarching storyline.
With most of a year’s worth of sessions behind them, my players have now developed all sorts of bonds with the various NPCs of this world, facilitating sequences like an in-game wedding and a teleporter-facilitated pan-continent siege defense. It’s an odd thing to say, but it’s nice to have reached the point where killing off a particularly well-liked NPC prompts some legitimate fury and despair from my players. They care! They really care! Anyway, I’ll have more to say on that soon, but for now let’s get back into the drama of Vox Machina!
Episode 8
Damn, this elven city is beautiful. I wonder how directly these landscapes were taken from Mercer’s descriptions, or if the show’s artists were allowed to go a little wild on them. Presumably a balance – as I discussed before, it’s useful for significant cities and towns to have key visual landmarks that give them a sense of identity and specificity, but I imagine the details were up to the artists
Nice establishing shot as we pan down to the city, again maintaining this season’s increased focus on multiple layers of depth
Also some clever panning shadows as the party moves beneath a sequence of archways, echoing last episode’s increased emphasis on lighting in the composition. The team are really pushing it for the Fey Realm
Keyleth asks Vex how the city was teleported, and Vex basically responds, “I dunno, the top elves do some magic crap.” I quite like that – there’s some sort of lore explanation, but Vex personally would neither know nor be interested in knowing it. Lore-focused players and DMs can occasionally stumble in their navigation of character versus authorial voice, so it’s nice to hear a character blankly say “I don’t fucking know”
Finally caught, the twins state they seek an audience with Ambassador Vessar, their father
Gosh, the lighting and color design of this city really are lovely. Much more colorful than my own campaign’s elven city, though mine is more a magically guided extension of the deep woods
Percy is well-placed to assure Vex that nobility is no sign of character. A natural point of connection between the two
The twins meet their father’s new wife Devana, as well as their new half-sister Velora
They both seem lovely, which of course makes this drama all the more tangled. A good choice
Meanwhile, their father Syldor seems a prick from the start
More family reunions for our other party half, as Pike returns to the home of her father Wilhand. At this point I have to assume this party split is expanding beyond whatever split actually occurred in the campaign, simply to more efficiently run through this gamut of character-specific beats. Actual campaigns are allowed to ramble, and meeting one of your party members’ families is a fun activity for the whole group, but compressing one hundred-plus sessions into a few seasons of drama demands as much efficient cross-cutting as possible
Apparently it’s actually her great-great-grandfather. I guess gnomes live significantly longer than I expected!
Wilhand already knows Grog. The conjoined backstories of Pike-Grog and the twins facilitate some unique narrative opportunities, though of course they demand a particularly willing player group. I’m actually considering having some sort of connected backstory with my most reliable player for my house’s next campaign, as that level of prebaked emotional connection seems like it gives you a little more control in steering your continuing journey
Percy actually sticks up for the twins against their shitty dad, who simply refuses to believe they’ve amounted to anything
Vex is the only one who can extract any support from him, but only by accepting his mockery with grace and thanks. You can see how her long-standing desire to genuinely please him at least taught her how to flatter him
Meanwhile, Scanlan’s administering a cantaloupe-sized suppository to Grog
Vex refuses to snap for her own sake, but once her father starts insulting Percy, the gloves are off
More unique lighting effects as the party return to the wilds, combining both clear shadows with multicolored motes of light to create a properly mystical atmosphere
Percy and Vex share a tender moment after they escape the city. Nothing like shitty blood relatives to remind people who their true family are
“You have a pure heart, Vex.” Does she? I feel like she’s perhaps the most cynical member of the party, possibly excusing Percy himself. That’s part of why they get along so well!
“Must have felt good to tell him to fuck off.” “I wish it had. Somehow I felt like it hurt me more.” Oof, cutting line from Vex. Throwing anger at people who’ve hurt you only to be met by indifference is one of the worst feelings there is
More delightfully strange creatures as the party continues through the Fey Realm. I imagine most of these were invented for the show, as setting a visual scene is much easier in an, erm, visual medium than it is in prose, or even worse, in spoken prose. I basically keep a mental chess clock running in my head whenever I’m expositing to the party, hoping to hit that button and return to party control as soon as humanly possible
Keyleth announces that the plants are sad
As a voice calls to the party, Garmelie helpfully explains that the Shademurk is home to a cursed archfey named Saundor. Garmelie serving as guide seems like a necessary concession to the danger and unpredictability of the Fey Realm. I actually employed a similar character myself when my characters journeyed deep into a ruined city, essentially building my own version of a Stalker traversing the Zone
“As long as you don’t submit to his voice, his sadness won’t turn you.” ‘As long as you don’t submit to his voice’ is an intriguing concept to build a mechanical conflict around, presumably necessitating the players pay active attention to what they’re saying and who they’re saying it to, with novel and hopefully amusing results. Granted, this is also just something you could just handle via a wisdom saving throw, but where’s the fun in that?
Cute match cut of a mundane frog leaping outside the window of Wilhand’s house, leading into a freaky-ass frog completing the jump in the Fey Realm
Vex passes through the muck of the bog with ease, though the others find it nearly impossible to traverse. Turning physically demanding or treacherous terrain into coherent mechanical challenges is a problem I’m still grappling with – obviously “difficult terrain” already exists as a concept, and you can always make people roll athletics or whatnot to traverse some particular obstacle, but neither of those solutions feel flavorfully or strategically satisfying
“If approval is what you seek, your father will never give it.” Well, this cursed archfey has a point there
Appropriately ominous design for our rootbound archfey
Vax motions for Keyleth to grab his dagger in order to release their bindings. One of the most dramatic instances of a Help Action I’ve witnessed
“Dear, broken Vex’ahlia. I can fix you.” A natural contrast here: this archfey emphasizes how Vex is broken and needs to be fixed, while Percy insists that she’s perfect the way she is. This archfey is not tempting her through positive reinforcement, but through expertly echoing her father’s contempt
And as with all men like this, his response to being rejected is an immediate “you bitch!”
Lovely tree monsters emerge as the fight begins, though we’re unfortunately dipping back into that first season issue of everything being too darn dark
The archfey appears to have a bow that casts Entangle on everything it hits, a nasty trick
Excellent sense of continuous moment as we cut between the characters here. This show’s big battles are quite something
Also nice impact frames and fire effects animation as Keyleth goes elemental mode
“Vex stabs the archfey with Percy’s gifted arrowhead” is such a narratively perfect solution that I have to assume it was a touch less clean in the campaign proper. Great, coherent writing essentially demands careful editing after the fact, something that’s impossible in DnD
So impressed is Garmelie with their antics, he offers a portal back to Tal’Dorei
And we learn the vestige gauntlets belong to Grog’s uncle. More delightful family reunions to come, apparently!
And Done
The team snags another vestige! They actually kinda aced this one, frankly, with Saundor’s temptations only briefly convincing Vex she was broken and needed fixing. I also quite liked that Vex still doesn’t feel comfortable meeting with her father – she initially thought showing him this vestige would make her feel better, but it seems she’s come to understand that playing by his terms will never satisfy either of them. Between Pike, Grog, and the twins, this episode essentially served as a wandering overview of the diverse ways preexisting family relations can enrich your players’ DnD experience (and reminding me in turn that I really should be seeding more such drama myself). Onward to Grog’s uncle!
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