Critical Role Recap: Episode 12

Critical Role Recap: Episode 12

Previously on Critical Role, the Mighty Nein shopped at a smutty bookstore, had some light and fluffy character moments, learned about Nott’s true desires, and agreed to help the Knights of Requital take down a corrupt lawwoman: High Richter Diana Pusine.

Two Paragraph Synopsis

The Mighty Nein’s goal in this episode was to bring the High Richter to justice after her actions caused members of the Knights of Requital, including their dwarven ally Ulag’s wife, to be wrongly imprisoned. After a great deal of pre-heist planning and reconnaissance, the Mighty Nein invaded three buildings. First, a medical clinic belonging to Wren Sutan, son of Lord Dietrich Sutan. Second, the manor of Lord Sutan himself in order to steal his wax seal and signet. Finally, the Nein invaded the home of High Richter Pusine herself in order to plant an incriminating document linking her and Lord Sutan to not just criminal activity, but a (fake) plot to assassinate Lawmaster Orentha.

However, after planting evidence in the High Richter’s abode, Pusine herself caught them in the act. Ulag sacrificed himself in order to save the party by tackling the High Richter and shoving an explosive bead from a necklace of fireballs into her throat. As they fled the scene, one of the towers of the Trispire district began to collapse after an unrelated magical attack, and several shadowy figures escaped into the night sky. As the Trispire District was thrown into chaos, the Mighty Nein encountered one of the attackers: a Xhorhasian dark elf carrying a polygonal magical device.

Full Summary

The Mighty Nein made plans to infiltrate Lord Sutan’s manor, acquire a copy of his handwriting, and forge an incriminating letter to the High Richter Pusine. The evidence they intended to plant in the High Richter’s home would not only suggest that she and Lord Sutan had dealings with the criminal gang known as the Myriad, but would also implicate her in a fabricated plot to assassinate Lawmaster Orentha, the city’s chief minister of the law. If the plan worked, she would be imprisoned and hopefully the Knights of Requital could place one of their own agents in the position of High Richter.

The plan would begin in 24 hours, during a harvest festival thrown in the Trispire District. The Knights of Requital believed that both Lord Dietrich Sutan and High Richter Pusine would attend the festival and thus be away from their homes, allowing the Mighty Nein to sneak in unperturbed. To make the plan work, the Mighty Nein decided they needed a sample of Lord Sutan’s handwriting in order to forge the letter in his hand. The party decided to split in two; one half went to Lord Sutan’s villa in order and case the joint. The other half went to the Guided Hand, a medical clinic run by Lord Sutan’s son, Wren Sutan, in hopes of finding a sample of Lord Sutan’s handwriting.

Outside Lord Sutan’s estate, Beau snuck past the guards and their guard dog into the garden. Jester looked at the buildings around the house and found a large tree that could be used to scale onto the roof of the house. Content with their plan of scaling the walls and getting onto the roof, they went to the Penta Market and purchase a rope and a grappling hook to aid in their ascent the next day.

Chaos at the Guided Hand

Meanwhile, Fjord, Nott, Caleb, and Molly made their way to the Guided Hand infirmary, a stunning medical complex that somehow managed to appear even wealthier than the other buildings around it. After a quick casing of the building, the party determined that the only outside-facing rooms were rooms for patients, and any offices that might contain samples of Lord Sutan’s handwriting were only accessible from inside the complex. Caleb magicked Frumpkin onto the roof to search for a way in through the roof.

As he did this, however, a young boy walking around outside was shocked to see Frumpkin disappear right in front of his eyes. This child had been playing with Frumpkin as the party was searching, and he walked over to Fjord and naively asked him where the kitty went. Fjord and Caleb tried to explain the situation away, but Nott quickly came to the rescue by leaping out at the boy and scared him away. Ultimately, however, the party learned that the only way into the Guided Hand was through the front door, and they reassessed their plan of attack.

Molly came up with an… interesting plan. He returned to the Leaky Tap to get bits of old breakfast to create fake vomit and put makeup all over his genitals to imitate gonorrhea. He and his companions returned to the clinic and caused chaos, getting Molly ushered inside by a group of physicians while Nott made a ruckus and Frumpkin attacked one of the clerks outside. Fjord, Caleb, and Nott slipped inside during the confusion.

Molly, inside the clinic, used vicious mockery to attack the doctors in Infernal, The Exorcist-style, but was quickly subdued and locked up as “a danger patient.” Clearly, the Mighty Nein’s infiltration plan had gone terribly awry. Now, all they could do was salvage the operation by haphazardly grabbing whatever documents they could and escape without being thrown in jail. The Crownsguard had been called, but fortunately they were all able to escape into the night, either through attacking clerks like Nott, magically disguising themselves as physicians like Fjord, or jumping through a window like Molly.

Though Fjord managed to get some papers from one of the office desks, none of them bore Lord Sutan’s handwriting. Now without Sutan’s script for Jester to mimic, they needed a new plan. The two split parties reunited in the Leaky Tap and devised a new strategy: find Lord Sutan’s signet ring or wax seal and use that to show that he wrote the letter. If the handwriting he used wasn’t his own, it’s possible that the letter was simply written by a servant. 

Nott’s Request

The group paused for a break here. After the break, Nott showed Caleb some bracelets that she found on a skeleton in a second basement beneath the Leaky Tap just a few episodes ago (this moment was omitted from our recap). Caleb was suspicious that someone had hidden a skeleton in the basement of the inn, but Nott seemed to think that fact was unimportant. Caleb decided to file that thought away for later. Caleb cast identify on the bracelets, and learned that while they were not magical, they were made of beautiful platinum with a golden design.

Nott told Caleb, in awed tones, that she was impressed by his magical power, and seemed unusually curious about how powerful he was… and how powerful he would grow, and how quickly he would gain power. This moment carried an ominous weight, now that we’ve learned how much Nott longs for Caleb to grow in power to “save her.”

Infiltrating Lord Sutan’s Manor

That evening, the party met with Ulag, one of the Knights of Requital. He was the impetus for the plan to depose the High Richter, as his wife had been wrongfully imprisoned by the corrupt High Richter’s decree. This dwarf rogue agreed to aid them in the infiltration, and the party immediately departed for Lord Sutan’s estate. On the way toward the Trispire, the party and Ulag convinced the guards that they were entertainers… but only after Ulag told a dismal joke and Jester managed to convince the guards that he was really more of a slapstick comic, and shoved him to the ground. The guards, amused, let them into the district.

Caleb, suspicious of Ulag, made a DC 17 Wisdom (Insight) check and received a whisper from Matt. Deadpan, Liam stated “Guys, [he’s] Larkin.” (Referencing a running joke from the last campaign.) They made their way through a joyful festival until they reached the villa. In front of the estate were two guards, and one guard with a hound lurked behind the house. Beau and Jester outlined the plan of entry, and the party once again split up, with Molly and Fjord remaining outside the estate to run interference while the rest of the group snuck in. The party had a difficult time getting into the manner, nearly fumbling the break-in, but made it to the roof, removed some loose tiling, and descended through the hole in the roof.

Upon entering, Jester cast locate object to detect the location of a wax seal—in order to put Lord Sutan’s seal on the forged letter. Also upon entering, Caleb cast detect magic and learned that there was an aura of transmutation surrounding several suits of armor in the hall. They avoided the armor without difficulty.

As they explored, Nott found a trapped door and disarmed the trap, resulting in some excited cheering from the players. This door emerged into the master bedroom, and now that the party was on edge, they began searching for traps all around the room. Caleb had maintained concentration on his detect magic spell, and learned that the rug in the room radiated transmutation magic and a cabinet was surrounded by a magical aura as well. Jester informed the group that her spell told her that the wax seal was underneath the rug!

Beau explored the room and found that there was a piece of stonework underneath the hearth that didn’t match the rest of the masonry. The brick was completely a different color than the soot-covered stones. By pressing the brick, she disarmed the transmutation magic affecting the cabinet. However, as they cased the room, the magical carpet in the room sprang to life and attacked the party! It was a rug of smothering and it gained surprise on the party! The rug began to crush Nott, and the Mighty Nein leapt into action to destroy the rug. However, they quickly learned that half of the damage the rug took was transferred to Nott, the creature enveloped by it!

During the fight, Beau knocked Nott unconscious, the rug enveloped Beau, and Beau was knocked unconscious as well. Fortunately, the rug was torn to tatters and both Nott and Beau were saved by Caleb and Jester, respectively. Underneath the rug was a trapdoor which opened into a cavity with a small chest. However, upon impulsively opening the chest, Nott was struck by a paralysis trap which immobilized her for a full hour!

The chest contained a wax seal, and Beau and Jester collaborated on forging their incriminating letter. After gathering the remains of the tattered rug, they fled the house. However, while carrying the paralyzed Nott out, Jester took a fall off of the roof. She and Molly were spotted by guards and escorted out of the Trispire. While they suffered no immediate consequences, they were spotted, a potentially catastrophic event in the long term. 

Planting the Evidence

With only a few hours of the gala remaining, the Mighty Nein plus Ulag rushed to the High Richter’s residence. In order to gain entrance, Jester disguised herself as the High Richter and Fjord disguised himself as a guard and successfully browbeat the terrified guards into letting their tempestuous mistress and her retinue enter. After disabling another handful of traps, they reached the High Richter’s room and began searching all of her furniture and belongings. Jester found a book beneath her mattress. It was a copy of The Courting of the Crick, the banned historical smut novel that Caleb had discovered at Chastity’s Nook the other day. It was strange, but the party didn’t let it get to them. Instead, Caleb began a magical search of the room.

He discovered that an aura of evocation emanated from a scroll case on her desk. Ulag found the letter that the High Richter had stolen from the Knights of Requital, the single piece of true evidence that had started this entire quest for vengeance. The true piece of evidence that incriminated the High Richter, and the piece of evidence Ulag’s wife had gone to prison for finding. He tucked it away in his pocket.

After the Mighty Nein planted the forged evidence, Caleb decided to go back for the scroll case—but Fjord would have none of it. The half-orc summoned his falchion and threatened Caleb not to pick up the scroll case. Everything would be left as it was; he wouldn’t have his partners getting greedy at a crime scene. Caleb objected, but no resolution could be reached; the argument wasted just enough time for the High Richter to return to her home and confront the intruders.

She rang a bell, presumably a magic one, calling the guards. Jester cast hold person, but the High Richter easily resisted the spell. Ulag gave the party a sad look and took the letter from his pocket and gave it to Caleb. Then, with a cry, he leapt from the stairs towards the High Richter. He tackled her and produced a magical, glowing bead of orange light, and shoved it into her throat. This bead from a necklace of fireballs exploded within the High Richter, instantly immolating both her and her attacker—and knocking Caleb out in the blast.

Panic! At the Harvest Festival

Before the Mighty Nein could even react, however, their attention was drawn by another explosion. An orb of darkness erupted from the Zauberspire in the distance, and the massive tower began to buckle and collapse. Two silhouetted figures escaped from the tower, flying through the air, and the Mighty Nein quickly decided to flee in the confusion. Magic instantly propped up the collapsing Zauberspire, but the Trispire District had become a scene of pandemonium. The Mighty Nein fled to the sewers.

As they attempted to escape, however, they encountered one of the attackers. He was an armored figure with a demonic helmet. He carried a strange magic item, a glowing polygonal shape of some sort. It was large enough to require two handles on each side, as if it were meant to be carried by two people. The creature shouted a phrase in Undercommon, and Caleb cast comprehend languages to understand what it was saying… and that’s where we’ll pick up next week.

Critical Role will return on April 5th, 2018. Who are these mysterious terrorists, and what do they want? Could they truly be dark elves from Xhorhas? And most importantly… Is it Thursday yet?

Photos in this article are courtesy of Geek & Sundry

 


 James Haeck is the lead writer for D&D Beyond, the co-author of the Critical Role Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting, and a freelance writer for Wizards of the Coast, the D&D Adventurers League, and Kobold Press. He loves watching Critical Role and wants everyone he knows to get into it, too. He lives in Seattle, Washington with his very own Frumpkins, Mei and Marzipan. You can usually find him wasting time on Twitter at @jamesjhaeck.

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