Keyleth's Pyrah AraMente - Vox Machina, Ep. 22 | Critical Role Demystified 

How would you handle a coming-of-age story in D&D?

"Continue on and hope I don't make a fatal mistake." Smash cut to swan diving off a cliff shouting "It's fine, we're Gods!"

I forgot that moment travis in character: "You got a kiss?! I didn't get a kiss! Laura, out of character grieving cause the carpet is gone, turns around and kisses her husband Travis, in character: "WHAt the F**k just happened?!?"

Yeah, the reveal of how arduous Keyleth's earth trial truly was definitely rattled me, and I'm certain that Vox Machina were shaken as well. Because they never knew how bad it was until now. The fact that she was still very much traumatized by that accidental death of the child only made it worse, as it kept her from making any progress. For six months. ALONE. She had spent all that time alone, no one from VM to support her. It truly put into perspective why she'd been hesitant to make certain calls, or refused to partake in certain things. She feared failure, feared straying from the path. She feared taking another innocent life. That whole confession, of her vision and her trauma compounding her fears, was only the tip of the iceberg for how much of a master Marisha Ray can be at role-playing. Little wonder, then, that I became a Kiki fan after that. And I just had a thought. Seeing as in Season 2 of LOVM it was mentioned that she has yet to fulfill her earth trial in that series... I suddenly realize that we might see that for ourselves: the vision of her death.

Travis is so good at roleplaying that he still reacted being shocked by a kiss from Vex even though Laura is actually his wife 😂

There was also one "tiny" moment: the moment Keyleth dove in, Vax had to fight his fear of lava... and still had to roll a wisdom save even with the immunity to fear from the Heroes' Feast. Because there are some fears you can never shake. And yet, he pulled through because he thought of her and the bond they'd been nurturing as friends... as well as something deeper which we don't see hinted at again until a few episodes later. Just something I wanted to add to this as a sidebar.

The way that these videos come in time with TLOVM is amazing

I didn't know at the time that Laura and Travis were together... so that kiss REALLY shocked me lmao.

Commenting because the algorithm but honestly Keyleth is so under rated and I'm so glad she is getting a kind of reprive with the animated show. She's my fave and it was exhausting to defend her constantly (especially after the water trial)

I'm glad you included that moment at the end with the metal. It was so perfect Matt had to make it canon.

The issue with Orion and Tiberius is mirrored with Taliesin Jaffe and Percy. Both have adjustments to their characters, but Taliesin rolls with it a lot better than Orion seems to.

So, the Grog-kiss. I actually really loved that scene. It's actually really Vex, BUT the ONLY reason it's really fun to watch is BECAUSE they are married and have a lot of fun with the role-play. But, just like with the Keyleth-kiss, it is not with consent. In other words, players, don't do that!!! Edit: I rewatched a bit and you can see Marisha is actually quite terrified, sitting next to Orion. She keeps occasionally glancing to the wristband and she was really terrified when it came of and hit her.

Sorry to hear you were laid off, Mike. That certainly complicates things, but it seems you're in good spirits about it despite the challenges. Thanks for another great video (I forgot that this was the watershed moment for a more emotional, character-driven game, and that's coming from a big Keyleth fan). Take care.

Can we talk about how important Grog's "Your people, are *fucking sweet*," is? (Clip starts at 22:45 ) That little bit of irreverence releases the tension and provides a really nice sense of closure. Like, if he hadn't done that, I can just imagine Vax or Percy (or possibly even Keyleth herself) going "Well. That's that then." Which would have worked, I guess, but would have been so much less satisfying. I'm reminded of a bit that Adam Hills, a comedian, has, where he's talking about meeting the queen (and prince Phillip): "When you hear about prince Phillip, the things he says, they look offensive on paper, but when you're there in person ... It's what you need! Cause it releases the tension, you've just met the queen! He's basically walking up and going 'Well, that was bizzare, wasn't it? Here's something fucked up!'" It is that moment of, it's okay, you've just done something super serious, but now it's okay to laugh again, cause life goes on, and once again, it just shows what a masterful actor Travis is. Not just in the driver's seat like with his haggling scene, he's an amazing support too. I mean they're all pretty damn good but still.

"There were two paths, in one I am old and wise and the other I'm a dead goldfish"

Oh, i remember the time i thought the massive red dragon in the room was just a red herring that Matt added to create some tension for the party. Such innocence...

If I had a nickel for every time a critter sent in fanmail that was written from the perspective of an NPC in order to disparage a PC, and Matt made it canon, I'd have 2 nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.

I have watched the entirety of campaign 1 five times and I never knew about the participation medal! It is referenced later in the campaign and I always just assumed they slightly misremembered the events or got something mixed up - happens all the time, nothing unusual. The reference takes on a whole new meaning now!

Thank you for replaying that clip of Keyleth's vision. It's so cool seeing how Keyleth goes from an uncertain druid to an archdruid leader.

i mean, to me its prety obvious why he'd want the weapons. he literally just got out of a fight with a creature that was immune to his cantrips, while he was also out of spell slots. He has basically no ability to fight the rakshasa. as a result, orion (and, realistically tiberious) realized that Matt had no qualms about sending him, a full caster, against a creature that he'd be largely ineffective against, and so sought ways to compensate. i think the crossbow and quarterstaff make perfect sense considering what he'd just gone through. the pet was kinda weird, but i think you could be right, as a sorcerer he doesn't get multiattack, so the best way for him to boost the effectiveness of using his xbow/quarter staff would be to get advantage. But that relationship is much less obvious.

3:59 Ashley's "Surprise I'm Here" dance is pretty adorable

I'm with you Mike in the support of Keyleth (and Marisha as a player). There is no reason to diss her. There's a huuuuuuuge difference between she's not your favourite character from the group and disrespect her. Anyone who treats awfully Marisha isn't welcome.

And Here. We. Go. The Demystified I've been looking forward to for a while, as this is what officially made Keyleth my favorite of Vox Machina. It's also the origin of her nickname "Kiki". 🔥💖

My first introduction to Marisha was via CR Campaign 1; I didn't know how much was her, and how much was Keyleth. Now, that doesn't mean that I disliked Marisha, just that I had a difficult time getting my bearings with regard to where she ended and Keyleth began. Thank you for this video, especially for highlighting Marisha being the one to first step boldly into the unknown, and help shift the tone of the broadcast.

This episode always makes me think of my Pathfinder Gunslinger. Percy carries black powder...he gets lit on fire and takes heat damage so many times this episode (that's why I love in the series he says "I'm extremely flammable" and panics about the fire coming at him). My Gm always said that in that same situation, he would have had me rolling to see of my powder exploded. Matt was extremely kind about not doing that to Percy. But perhaps that was a decision like the Water Elemental can't be caught on fire. Making Percy roll saves not to explode constantly would be dumb and slow things down.

I think it’s very interesting the reaction to Keyleth in LoVM I’ve seen online from both Critters and people new to Vox Machina. She seems well liked by the community in contrast to the reaction to her in the streams. I don’t know if it’s because the TV show doesn’t have a bunch of rules people can get obsessed over or if because if a lot of the toxic fans haven’t stuck around this long. Maybe it’s because Laudna is such a beloved character so the animosity towards Marisha herself is gone. I’m glad. Keyleth was one of my favorites watching C1 for the first time. She always felt more like what an actual person living in a DnD game would act like. “Hey, this shit is fucked up, can we stop and talk about it please!?”

This episode is great timing with the Legend of Vox Machina! Love the content Mike!

Really proud of how your channel has grown over the past year or so Mike! Also I wish you mentioned what a good job Marisha did at sharing lore with her party members in character.

So sorry to hear about your job! Just signed up on Patreon. I really love your videos, Mike. They are so down to earth, honest, clear, and inspired me to try my own hand at DMing. Keep your head up. We appreciate you!

This Keyleth moment next to the Beau moment from the cupcake episode (if you know, you know) are incredible examples of how good Marisha is as a player.

Always a pleasure when these come out

I first was introduced to Keyleth by a Vaxleth supercut (campgaign 1 and the characters through that too). I loved her from the beginning, yes there were some moments where it was a bit cringy at first, but I quickly got passed it and I'm so frustrated how much hate Kiki and Marisha got.

Thank you for these videos! I started halfway through so this is a great way to catch up!

Absolutely lovely video as always! You give me insight into the game that I would never have gotten on my own and I get to rewatch C1 without it taking 500+ hours to do so. And it’s really tying in with TLOVM and helps to compare and contrast the changes they made for the show.

This was super interesting to listen to after watching the LOVM version of Pyra.

omg i forgot about the medal XD thanks for including that bit! looking forward to more!

Thank you for your thoughtful commentary!

I really appreciate these analysis videos. Keep up the great work, and good luck with the job hunt!❤

I completely agree on your analysis of the importance of the Keyleth's monologue to the development of CR to the style the show has today.

i love this series! it surprises me every time that you don't have 100k subscribers yet

There’s been good reason for how long I’ve been waiting (not at too long, all things considered) but man I’m excited to be watching more of this series! Heck yeah

An example of NPC's presenting magic items with different names and/or descriptors in-game: in one campaign I've run, my tiefling shopkeeper/magical inventor whom the party visited quite often invented the boots of speed. He didn't name them that. They were called the Boots of Fast-as-Sh**.

These are so good. Thank you for everything you put into these also… It’s late and I’m tired… And I just tried to take the pink Post-it note off of my iPad. SMH.

Please don't stop adding some of the post show gems

I skipped everything between episodes 10 and 28, so I am enjoying hearing these videos to learn what happened (and see how it’s been translated in the animated series)

Love your video!

Oh well, at least that shopkeeper will later learn the true horrors of a haggler.

Did you say “something specifically that flies, like a dragonite or a raven” or did I just have a Pokéan slip

funny that you review this at the (roughly) same time that the animated episode comes out

Good timing xD

I apologize if this is unwelcome, but after you mentioned around 2:50 that you'd like a hunting-guild oriented game, I thought I'd mention that a fellow named Amellwind has done a really fun 5e D&D port of the Monster Hunter video game mechanics and beasts. I found his stuff on reddit a while back, and it's been great fun!

@SupergeekMike alternate possibility especially since he had his mind on dragons he might have been thinking long term of having a flying mount so that he didnt need to cast pilars of stone or fly on himself in combat as he often did so to get distance from enemies and he might have wanted to preserve those spell slots.

I beleive Tiberius's quest for lots of more items/weapons is him trying to power himself up more then nessecary, becoming a one man army. After last session, I can understand if he wanted new ways to deal damage, but attempting to get 3 items at a time(which becomes even more later) it becomes tedious and excessive.

Really enjoy this series 🥰

21:25 - “You’re on fire, Keyleth…It’ll pass.”

Fun fact: water can be set on fire. Three ways, really. You have have an accelerating float on the water, a chemical can be added to cause a reaction (throw pure magnesium into water), and you can heat the water so much that the chemical bonds between the oxygen and the hydrogen break and the water turns into two accelerates (they do not use water to put out fires with rocket fuel for that reason). A water elemental should be able to catch on fire, if a guy in full plate with no exposed cloth can because it is some sort of magic accelerate that is doing it, but for the purposes of the game, it was fun to see Matt struggle with that in the moment. In past editions, water spells just did not work in the plane of fire to keep from having to deal with some of the weirdness that results. The reason the water djinn do not take over Ifriti territory in the fire plane, despite having been described as hostile to each other, is because they cannot physically exist on the fire plane, according to the lore. 5e has not really said much on planar travel, though, so anything goes there, I guess.

I like Keylith and Marisha most of the time, but towards the end of finding the vestiges, she oscillates between slowing everything down with her fear of what to do first, and... picking sentient flowers in magical, conscious forest

12:30 The Ashari might might not remember but EXU: Calamity does.

Grog getting the metal is so fucking good

A 'bladed quarterstaff'?... So... a spear?

Hey Mike! Great stuff, but could you maybe equalize the audio for the game part and your part? Now one is much louder than the other :)

its crazy that we do finaly find out what happened to Keylaths mom in c2

I’m sure it gets super tiresome needing to repeat certain points due to comments still bringing up Tiberius, but just remember that your newest video is always someone’s very first video of yours, and I’m sure they aren’t bringing him up to annoy you or anything. Anyway, great content as always!

I never hated Keyleth, sure she wasn’t my favorite but I appreciated her character and she’s such a kick ass character late in the campaign. But I’ve grown to like her more and more as I’ve looked back on C1. For sure an overhated character

Re: getting a pet to become more powerful. My Forest Gnome Barbarian has the ability to have a pet. If she gets a small one, she can speak to it. She can commune with it. She can even use Beast Sense to see through its eyes and hear through its ears for an hour, after spending ten minutes to ask it for a favor and give it proper instructions. Sounds great, right? Excellent for scouting ahead. However, my "cutie-patootie" (My DM's words) "cupcake that can kill you" (My words), very childish Wisdom of FOUR barbarian has her eyes set on a very colorful, fluffy, cute breed of squirrel. The tail will make a lovely boa about her neck. I forget what it's called, but my DM pulled it up, as a suggestion, and it's actually colored blue, red, and purple! SO CUTE! So, naturally, the cutie-patootie must have a cutie-patootie pet, right? And squirrels are super fast, so that's awesome, right? Well, squirrels are also rather stupid, and easily distracted by peanuts, peanut butter, other nuts, just random sandwiches, and whatnot. I fully expect that, when I finally get my pet, and do the ritual to talk with it, and ask it to scout out the area for us, and then see from its eyes and hear from its ears, we are going to experience a jolly time, watching a squirrel look for yummies, for an hour, possibly now and then thinking, "Oh, yeah, I was supposed to be doing something, wasn't I? Oh, well. IS THAT A COOKIE?!" I mean, if I were the DM, that is totally what I would do for a player that took a squirrel companion. It's hilarious. I don't really want to come out and ask the DM to do that, but I'm actually considering it. I'll find it hilarious, and the party will laugh their butts off at my "wasted opportunity," no doubt. These are the people who "wasted" an entire turn in battle against an adult white dragon, just to pour Turn Blue Brew down its gullet, as a prank. IN BATTLE. So, yeah. Mind you, I LOVE playing my Barbarian to the fullest. She has a 16 Int, so she thinks very tactically and strategically, when her foolishness doesn't get in the way. For example, when she's thinking clearly, it's "This looks like a tactical time to rage. Raar." But touch her Barbarian Weekly Issue #69 with Nocan the Barbarian on the cover, and in-depth interview inside, and she will be TOO ANGRY TO REMEMBER TO RAGE. She'll grapple you by your calf, and start gnawing on your knees. That's who she is. So, an easily-distracted animal companion, whose main utility is just being so cute he cheers her up, whenever anything bad happens, is great! I LOVE getting max damage from my barbarian, but I also enjoy toning her efficacy DOWN, and letting the others shine. It makes her, in my opinion, more accessible and more likable, overall. And, as I said, she's tactical, and she's not power-hungry, or out to be the one with the most kills, so she's happy to use her attacks to shove and grapple, and give the others advantage on melee attacks, or even run out of melee range, triggering an attack of opportunity, soak the damage, and get back in, giving her partners advantage on attacks (Totem of the Wolf gives allies advantage on melee attacks, if you are raging within melee range of the same enemy), and using up the enemy's reaction, so it can't get an attack of opportunity on a squishy. In short - getting an animal companion CAN be very powerful, and boost your abilities, but it's also perfectly reasonable for a PC to get one just because "IT'S SO FLUFFFYYYYYYY!" As long as you're not playing with a bunch of min-maxers, that is.

I'm not gonna lie, I think the items and stuff Tiberius gets and the pet he wanted all make sense and don't cause any issues. They barely change his balance, he goes from "not wanting to be in melee under any circumstance" to "doesn't want to be in melee but if someone runs into his melee he can smack them with a pointy stick for 1d8+1 damage of either pointy or whappy variety" Personally I let my players get new weapon proficiency all the time since I keep introducing new weapon types as well. I would've probably said something like "You'll have to spend a little time figuring out how to use it, but if you practiced with a martial character you could learn it in a couple days" to promote my players asking each other for help. They're level 10, you could give him an armor proficiency at this point and it wont change the balance much at all. Also, if you have little dragon companions in your world. The "Dragonborn Draconic Sorcerer from Draconia" is absolutely, 100%, going to want one and you should immediately think about how he's going to get one cuz otherwise you might as well promise a child a puppy and never give them one.

Having just finished watching the Umbrasyll epiode, I'm getting a little overloaded on CR watching this vid too, but it's totally worth it.

What a conveniently timed episode 👀👀👀

When kiki said goodbye to the fire ashari I was half expecting grog go say "teriyaki"

Sorry to hear about work.

Does anyone have a timestamp for the flamethrower thing? I completely missed that

Im glad that a lot more people are seeing how great Keyleth as a character Although I didn't start in campaign 1, I did learn that she got some hate in the initial run of the show. But between campaign 3, and the tv show, I am happy people are recieveing Keyleth better

Keyleth rocks!

Keep it up bro! Praying for you to get swiftly a new job.

As a dm, I wouldn't mind a player bringing cosplay weaponry to the table so long as it's peace-bound. Or in the case of a flamethrower they can't have any fuel in it.

2:40 - There's something like that coming from Ghostfire Gaming, and last year there was a successful Kickstarter called Steinhardt's Guide to the Eldritch Hunt, in which there's a class called the Jaeger which is borrowed from German Jäger, meaning “hunter”. There's also Evil Hat's Monster of the Week game that's already out, though it's meant more for Buffy tVS-style monster slaying, and would take some conversion for pseudomesival fantasy. There's also Beneath A Cursed Moon, an Apocalypse World game. The Ghostfire game and Steinhardt's would require the least conversion, because both are 5e products and already focus on the eastern European monster legends which fit the setting of The Witcher. Of course, you could just reskin and rename regular statblocks and dial the encounters to a couple clicks past deadly. I've run 4 monsters combined into 1, and described it as some multi-headed mutated monstrosity.

I appreciate your talk about Keyleth's scene very much. Despite trying, I can never get to liking Keyleth as a character, but I LOVE Marisha and totally agree with everything you say here

I was a huge fan of half the cast of critical role and managed not to learn about the show until I saw fan art of Beau during early c2 so without Marisha I might not have heard about critical role till the amazon show

I think the issue that comes up a lot with people disliking certain characters or claiming PC's aren't "acting consistently" is that folks don't seem to realize this is all improv. Of course things aren't going to line up perfectly. They don't have a writer's room with multiple people planning out the character arcs for each PC. It's DnD with real humans making it up as they go along. I imagine this gets better as time goes on (I am not done with S1 of CR yet). But it's a bunch of theater kids playing an improv game together. It's not gonna be perfect.

Just putting it out there, I don't think you were making a big deal over nothing. Flash paper is still a fire hazard and Orion had a habit of some pretty unusual and sometimes oblivious behavior. And then obviously the moment where it flew off his wrist. I wouldn't call that nothing; it's still dangerous, even if it's not a full on flame thrower.

What's the context of that gift at the end? Idk who Kern and Philip the Nail are

I didn't hop on the critical role train as quickly as many others in the fandom. I think I only really started watching around the time their kickstarter began, but I don't recall ever disliking Keyleth. And finding out how hated she was is really weird to me because I like (and liked) the character. Now I never got around to finishing or keeping up with any of their campaigns - already fell way behind on the 3rd, so I may not really be considered much of a fan but take it as you will

Once season 2 ends I would love to hear your thoughts on how good you found the season, as a stand-alone and as an adaptation!

unless you're a DM whom offers plenty of downtime for the party to do whatever they they want, Then I feel just giving the proficiency with the new weapon is the best thing to do. Otherwise your stifling the players vision or fun/potential by them never learning to use said weapon or making them waste a feat on the horrible weapon proficiency feat

Personally I belive Will drew in all the misfortune like a scapegoat.

As much as I never really liked the early episodes of Campaing 1 (First time I watched it was after the season 1 of the animated series so I skipped right through it) But you can't deny the "YOU LOST THE CARPET????" and the "I DIDN'T GET A KISS" scenes aren't some of the best scenes in Critical Role history

No! Sorry about your job, that sucks. I can't support a ton right now, unfortunately, but I'll be sure to watch, like, and comment for every video you put out.

She's pretty funny ("We're basically gods!" and crashed and dies in the ocean), but one scene I think she, or the group actually, could have learned from was when they dealt with the underworld of Emon, the.... Clips? Whatever. Percy made a real good point that she thought she was better than those people, and she denied it, but to me it really did feel like she felt she was better than those people. I don't actually think that's a bad emotion, because people sometimes do feel better than others, but you still need to deal and respect those people to a certain point.

In the words of a wise dog “WATAH ON FIRE WHY?!”

I've never really understand why people don't care for Keyleth/Marisha. I know when I first started watching CR relatively new to both D&D and this sort of roleplay in general, I found Keyleth by far the most engaging at this point in the story. Most of the others came across more as either 1) boring loners or 2) meme characters at this point in the series.

Could a water elemental technically get caught on fire if it comes in contact with oil? Cuz that’s how you get fires on the ocean. I mean I guess it would be the oil that’s burning but 🤔

I really like how you expressed the whole "Tiberius shopping" section... very respectful. I would not allow blades on a quarterstaff to be wielded by a sorcerer... Now it's a polearm, weighs a lot more, and you don't have the proficiency, Orion. Suck it up. But like you said, it's up to Matt, and he made what I consider to be a fair ruling, even though it's not the ruling I would have made. The thing I don't get about the pet though, is this: Why not just learn Find Familiar? I know it's not normally a sorcerer spell, but he uses lots of spells that aren't canon, so why not work with Matt to get it done? Mercer is a pretty soft touch, and I'm sure he'd allow it. Then Orion could get the Help action all he wants, plus telepathic communication. I guess the players just didn't think about it.

If you had planned to have this episode air exactly in sync with the anime episode covering the same events, you would not have scheduled better. Congrats ^^.

Keyleth's Aramente thing was always the most interesting story of the members of Vox Machina besides Percy, and I'm really sad Matt never made it into a much bigger, more meaningful thing into the story, instead relegating it to side stories that serves as Keyleth's character growth vehicle. I mean, Grog, the twins, Pike and Scanlan, their backgrounds were interesting, but they only serves aiding NPCs and/or minor villains. But Keyleth? An interesting as hell rite of passage tribal thing that's right out of ATLA with all the cool elemental stuff. Maybe Matt just wanted to avoid DM×Girlfriend favouritism, but Keyleth's elemental journey deserved to matter just as much as Percy and the Briarwoods did. Kind of a waste, that they served to be almost little more as a way for Keyleth to not be the nervous little wreck she was in the beginning, when we coukd have had a real huge elemental threat, like the Primordials returning or something.

I think people didn't like Kiki because of how insufferable she was during fhe kraghammer arc, and they let that annoyance carry over through all of VM. Where as all the other characters were basically murderhobos in the kraghammed arc, and kiki was the only one trying to be a good person (plus she trusted the mind flayer more than the literal paladin whos friends with someone the already trusted) fans thought she was a godoy two shoes and a bummer when everyone else was just kicking ass. Plus Kiki was role palying the grief she still felt from murdering a child in the pre-stream game. I think the rest of the game and players caught up with her level of rp and commitment as the show went on and we should commend marisha for elevating the show instead of allowing kiki to be dragged down the way pike was early on. When Pike was doing things so heinous that she temporarily lost the favor of the everlight.

OOF. sorry you got laid off. great videos all around.

I've had a weird idea for a character for some time now. I wanted to play as a high level aster, that pretends to on the same level as the party. I'm not sure of the repercussions that this would entail, but I would love to play and find out. It would would thrilling. But I guess that I would need the do to trust me alot or put a bunch of rules in xD

Kashaw stealing the kiss was wrong, but I think the branding was worse. They weren't informed so they could not consent, but even then, 'consent' given under duress isn't real. From 'declawing' cats, to genital mutilation of children, to the brands human traffickers use to enslave their victims, non-consentually and permanently altering someone's body - their most fundamental property - is pretty messed up.

Is there a reason for all the miriaha hate like does she do something in an episode I haven't seen yet

I don't quite understand the gift that Travis got.