The Whitestone Welcome Wagon - Vox Machina, Ep. 28 | Critical Role Demystified 

What’s your favorite part of this episode?

It’s amazing how Matt created a moment so effective that Marisha based her entire character on it 5 years later

This is officially where Critical Role got real

The sun tree moment is one of the first times outside of full on major plot moments where truly the jokes and laughter just stop completely and the extremely serious tone sets in. Still chilling going back to it now.

It's harder to read Sam and Taliesin, but watching Marisha realize just what's going on is definitely something.

"Sun Tree, sounds nice..." A title so accurate and so misleading is a real gift. "Come hang out in Whitstone" You're killing me. On the Nat20 Auto Success thing, the way I've always done it, is the PC gets the best result *they* could get. So if I call for, or allow, a roll and they get a 20, no matter what it is, there is some forward motion. In this case, with a big dummy, I'd probably give him the same info, but if someone more scholarly had rolled, I'd give them greater context and info than I would ever give to someone who doesn't have the training. For example, I'd give a character like Percy the historical info of why there are giants here, and what he knows about that--I'd probably give him this info for free once the ruins had been identified, even if he hadn't identified it, because it's his homeland, while I'd just tell Grog he recognizes the type building from the stories, and maybe that he'd heard tales of their being giants in these mountains. It's a sliding scale of sorts, but it does add that niche protection, while also not limiting that fun surprise of the big beefy guy knowing a surprising amount about table settings, or the delicate sorcerer being an armchair expert in weightlifting techniques.

I think the thing with Grog knowing that is also just because it's story wise super satisfying because of how surprising it is (this is likely why Taliesin wanted Grog to have that - it's fun) AND how well it fits with Grog's background as well. And it's knowledge that absolutely makes sense for Grog to have, as it's not something about history or necessarily niche knowledge. Also I love the sun tree improvisational backstory SO much.

I'm a big fan of Grog recognizing the stone giant fortress, because it does good to demonstrate that even a very low intelligence character has areas where they are proficiently knowledgeable. Like Goku in Dragonball Abridged being aware of fine details about combat, despite being dumber than the original character in most other areas. Or Elan (the bard) from Order of the Stick, always being right when questions of narrative structure come up.

That Sun tree moment will never not send chills down my spine

Something you didn't mention that backs up your point that Taliesin gave permission for Grog to have the answer is that Matt actually points to Taliesin with his pencil after hearing "I want him to speak truth." He points to Tal then Travis before starting to narrate. It's a subtle but clear indication that Matt is directly flowing from Taliesin's statement, and using that as the catalyst for giving Grog this moment.

One thing you showed but didn't comment upon (at least I didn't hear it) is that: sometimes it's best for a GM to be blunt, and explicitly inform the party of their intentions! Sometimes trying to signal something to the players via in-game clues is very difficult, and they not pick up on it, so sometimes a quick 'Hey this is supposed to be a very hard encounter" can help to avoid an unwanted TPK or something

all these years later, i still get chills watching the Sun Tree scene. It doesn't matter how many times i know its coming. I get goosebumps the second Marisha starts going "no, no, no, no, no, no"

It’s amazing how well Matt managed to convey the terror of the Sun Tree in such a terrible set up, can imagine what that would’ve been like at a circle table

One thing I want to add with your note about Travis getting more credit for his play style of being willing to not have joke rolls taken or not having a nat 20 instantly give him things he shouldn't logically have, Talisen from what I've seen is fairly willing and happy to include other players in on his scenes, as seen here with "I want to hear him speak truth" and you can see on his face he's genuinely interested to see what happens, he's also excited for Travis getting that nat 20. He's also willing to let anything happen to his characters no matter what like we see later with the Feywild and the memory spell. Both of them are some of the best kinds of players to have at a table, especially together and they're both what I really aspire to be as a player.

Seeing this the first time was horrifying. Seeing in the animated series was even worse because the horrifying scene was made real. Seeing how this scene turned into a character backstory in C3 made my spine shiver. The creative minds of this team is just awe inspiring.

Would like to congratulate you for describing Scanlan's magical poop escapades with such a deadpan expression. No way I could have done that without a major case of the giggles. Well done!

As somebody who has never watched campaign one, instead going straight to campaign 2 (I liked the idea of the characters more, and god I regret picking a favourite character before episode 26) it is really weird seeing the clips and hearing very different voices than what I am used to. Laura's and Taliesin's range is insane

Years later this scene still gives me chills. And next episode, we get That Scene with That Door!

The psychological impact of repeating the descriptor "dangling" forces home the visual impact of the scene. Think of it like mini cuts in a movie scene. The repetition of the word is the snap from descriptor to them show their feet being off the ground. It's a powerful tool in storytelling, remember it as you run your games. Used sparingly, it carries a LOT of heft.

While Matt certainly has the vocabulary to tell a good story (even if he needs a thesaurus for alternatives to "toothy maw", "apparates", "come to consciousness" et al), with the effigies on gruesome display from the Sun Tree, he does one of the most effective things you can do in a visual medium: "Show, don't tell". This display, arguably better than anything else he could have done, told the audience, and much more importantly, his players, that "Shit just got VERY real." Great video, Mike.

Laudnas first appearance

This was the most heart-rendering scene on the show as they realise what Matt is describing. It was well-done in the TV show, too. It might have been a little softer in the TV-show because you didn't get the human being players reacting. I don't think anything could be darker.

Curse of Strahd is one of those settings where if you have players that are ok with darker subjects you can have a lot of fun being evil. The look of horror on my players faces when they went to the windmill after earlier in the campaign actually bringing a "lost child" to the sweet old ladies that lived there. They managed to sneak in and rescue some of the other kids later, start a fire to burn the windmill down, but the hags chased them for most of the campaign after that making long rests near impossible and their nightmare ability I'd actually narrate the children begging the players not to take them back to "granny"

The tiger with flaming paws vignette gave rise to my favorite C1 Marisha joke - "Yeah, I'm an Ed hardy shirt !" Fantastic content as ever Mike.

The sun tree sticks in my head in unintended ways because I got a real life jump scare from it; I was listening really closely with how intense everything was, and just about when I realized who the bodies on the tree were, my phone rang. I really liked your focus on letting Taliesin come up with history for the sun tree. It reminds me of how sometimes when we ask about our own history in my mom's game, she'll reply 'no wrong answers.' She has a massive pile of lore she built up in this world, but also goes out of her way to make sure we have wiggle room to add to it ourselves.

My husband is dming a game in which one of my characters has a little sister that's being dragged along for the ride. We established ahead of time that he could not outright kill her unless the moment felt right at the time and we would definitely have to play it by ear as we went. But by rule there was not going to be any sudden death permitted. I cannot handle child harm generally and most definitively cannot handle child death. She did however get harmed off-screen and is currently in some kind of spell induced coma which causes immense amount of character distress but certainly protect me. And it was all in service of our characters finally finding the f****** plot LOL.

The Sun Tree Some moments Critical Role are famous because they either funny or epic. Like Fjord rolling three nat 1s in a row or Grog killing Kevdak by dropping down on him from the necklace. This isn't one of these moments. This is famous because of how horrific it was. The moment when Critical Role got real and I am so glad that the show not only did it justice but in some ways made it even worse and more impactful.

I believe it's episode 29 or 30 where Sam gets the most lucky/epic moment for Scanlan. The dice gods were on his side at a level unlike any before. I can't wait to hear the commentary on it.

Okay actually a couple things A couple days ago I was playing as an Eladrin in a campaign, from the Feywild. I made up a bunch of Feywild lore, because I didn’t know a lot of details of the Feywild, and my DM just ran with it. Always great when the DM does that, instead of stopping you and telling you “no, that’s not how it works.” It was very nice (TW: Suicide) Yesterday I was playing in another campaign, and we are currently going through a very serious arc, because we are a very dramatic group. Recently a character had told a story to my character about how they found out they were an Aasimar: they attempted to kill themself by jumping off a cliff, and their wings popped out. This session we found ourselves on that island where that happened, and my character slipped away from everyone else to climb the mountain and look over the edge of that cliff. Everyone in the party started fearing that my character, who was very depressed and traumatized at the time, was going to jump herself. I just stopped everything and told them, “Look, it’s one thing to talk about something that happened in the past tense, it’s another thing to roleplay out a suicide. Don’t worry, that’s not what I’m doing. And if something like that does happen, I would hope whoever is doing it would warn us beforehand. I want to make it clear: that’s not what I’m doing here.” Everyone in the group would have been fine with it, but I would never do that to them without warning and consent. This is why trigger warnings are important!

Thank you very much for including the clips from the episode, I know it's harder to edit but it really adds something to see their reactions so thank you.

I wonder what Grog is up to in the time of C3. My headcannon is he eventually learned how to read (sort of) and write (also sort of) & teaches preschool.

We have made it to 28! Time to have some fun 💜

I think it's a testament to this moment that it's literally the first thing I found out about Critical Role, before I started watching the show.

The moment when Travis says it's better fighting than buying I take as a fact that they're enjoying more the table. And I can't get enought of the Sun Tree scene, the reactions of the players is so epic.

I remember watching in horror and awe through the Sun Tree scene. Chills.

Who’d have thought this moment was going to have echoing repercussions years later

This episode is around where I started for no reason in particular 👀😬

laudina's family hangout

Agree with what you said about skill checks. Although I think it's reasonable that Grog would recognize a stone giant fortress. Since he grew up in the mountains and Goliaths are related to giants.

honestly this was my favorite ep of campaign 1 for some time, just because they all seemed so much lighter without the other guy there. there's less talking over, more conversation and trying things that are outside of the box. Also the way travis' face lit up when matt let the nat 20 for intelligence stand is so freaking cute

This is such an important episode. I was looking forward to your thoughts on it. As always, a pleasure to listen to your viewpoint. This arch feels so baked in, so thought out. I adore it. I struggled getting into campaign 1 (I got in the fandom when they started exu prime), but this is definitely a great hook for the rest of the campaign.

As someone who never was able to get into the first campain, regardless of how COOL I thought it was (I really tried), I regard your episode as incredibly informative about the group, both in game and around the table. It even informs and elevate my appreciaton of campain 3. But also, as someone who never was super informed that scene was a total surprise to me during the show. Le legend of Vox Machina had me gasp out loud and hit my table in excitement/uncontrolable sadness/righteous indignation. Seeing the face of the players just slowly grasping thing, Marisha being first, scrambling papers to try to make sens of it somehow, like it's not going to be what she thinks it is... Heart breaking. And it's amazing. I think this might also be the reason why Laudna exist in season three. But because of Laudna; *slight spoiler for campain 3* When they go back to white stone, and members of Vox Machina sees her. The utmost guilt Matt portrays: I can SEE Vex/Laura in his face. They might all be voice actor per profession, but they are also pure actors. But this scene keeps on giving YEARS after. SO. GOOD.

the way you are serious about trigger warnings is really important. I've gotten straight up trauma from fictive story, which I am dealing with in therapy (haven't done that since early childhood). So thank you, Mike, for taking this seriously.

Imogen! I mean Laudna!

Just a note - it might be a good idea to mention that there is extra content in the patreon version in the intro of the videos, rather than at the end. That way I would actually switch over and watch it there. I'm not going to rewatch a video for some extra clips, but I would watch that version from the beginning if I knew about it. Anyway, I always enjoy these as a nice way to revisit and discuss the first campaign, thanks for all your work!

Hey, a Jay and Adam cameo! Love pReviewed!

I'm glad this episode dropped when it did. I loved the shock factor of the Sun Tree myself, but I can definitely see how people would find descriptions of such content to be... distressing. My next session is going to involve some really nasty stuff, and while I think Matt did a decent job here, and all the players were capable professionals that in theory employ some measure of mental health protection, I can't assume my players will be as hardy. I'll be checking out your video on safety tools next. Edit: turns out they didn't need it. Not sure how to feel about how nonchalant they were...

In my own home games, I make sure to check in with my players after every session if the subject is particularly dark. This would be one of those sessions where that would be necessary

I checked the wiki and find no further mention of the behir parts. Guess Trinket has an Iron Stomach and eats whatever they don't use. At least, that's my fun idea for it.

This is the kind of thing Strahd has been doing to our party in the Curse of Strahd game I'm playing in. I love it, but it's extremely disturbing and not for everyone!

23:08 - I’ve had something like that happen a few times. I’m making things up on the fly and it feels like a story flows through me which didn’t originate with me. I think the most grim thing that’s come out of it was a body which showed evidence that someone had been sealed in a reinforced room for weeks without food. It was a horror game (Dungeons of Drakkenheim) and the group was exploring the abandoned hideout of a necromancer who was seeking to become a lich. I’m starting a new gaming group soon with family members, so I’m setting it in Forgotten Realms which is more gonzo, so it should be more prone to comedy than horror. It’s the first time playing for many of them, so we don’t need to jump in with the stuff that needs content warnings. Dealing with spiders is probably the most emotionally challenging material, and even then I’ll check to make sure no one has panic-inducing arachnophobia. Happy Birthday!

the suntree gallows is by far one of my favourite scenes in the campaign

oh please make another video on your Baba Lysaga thing, im intensely curious, even a short one would be interesting.

LESGOOOO notifications gang, and for one of my fav episodes that's what's upp

If for nothing else on the channel, I’m always here for Travis being given his due as an excellent player of the game. 💚

Can't overemphasise how much I love this series

You can hear the sarcasm meters are turned up to 11 when they try to "persuade" NPC Tiberius not to leave

Sir, kudos for saying "Whenever he leaves a new mark to look through, the prior poop loses its magic." perfectly neutrally and without laughing.

This episode is so fucking good! Legitimately one of my favourite CR episodes ever. If the 'Feast' episode is the start of the cast of settling in to the more RP heavy game that we know today, this is where we kicked it up a notch. Basically everything in this episode, Grogs Nat 20 for the fort, the conversations Vox Machina have about their plans in Whitestone and of course the Sun Tree, it's all so immediately good and refreshing after the last episode.

Terrific video as usual, Mike. There isn't a single one of these CR Demystified videos I haven't adored. I love the points you made about the difference between what I'll call "true lore" and "folk lore". Something that I love exploring in my worldbuilding both for games and for stories is how it's common for completely different explanations, meanings, and traditions to stem from the same event. We see it in today's world all the time from the extremes of conspiracy theories to the more mundane differences in both presentation and content in news coverage of an event at a local level, national level, and international level. Put that in a setting where knowing the full story of an event is limited by magical, cultural, and technological means, then extrapolate it over generations and you can have wildly different stories - full, cohesive stories - about pretty much anything. As a GM I tend to go one of two routes with almost all of my lore dumps: If the PC's existing knowledge matches up with what they're told by an NPC, and other NPCs echo that tale, it means that there's some key piece of information that NOBODY knows about, which will be revealed in the adventure. The other route (which I prefer, personally) is for the players to be presented with multiple explanations, sometimes even having multiple explanations from the PCs themselves, with each story having a different piece of the "truth" woven within it. Essentially the idea that every legend begins with a kernel of truth. Then the players can try (if they want) to discover what those truths are and how they fit together like jigsaw puzzle pieces to create the "true lore". Most of the time, I'm the only one who actually cares about that kind of folk lore seeding, but I am completely in love with it, so it's totally okay for no one else to care. It's seasoning in my worlds, not the main dish.

Fab video, fun to see Jay & Adam feature their reaction vids of LoVM were great!

the bodies is one of the most iconic moments in CR history, also a certain backstory

07:50, I was just thinking of suggesting making a video on Travis as a player. He truly is the kind we always want. Someone has done one though, but still.

"Wish you were here!"

My main dm has asked every player what they are ok with. It is something I suggest any dm to ask their party and lets him be more private with those of us who are ok with anything vs those who would rather not hear about darker subjects. Also this is one of the scenes that makes me truly believe the Briarwood arch is the best of Vox Machina hands down

The first event that showed the greater problem in my campaign was the discovery that the monster mutations plaguing a town were caused by the witch burried underground, who had was imbeded in the wall of a tunnel, trapped between life and death. The real twist was that someone had her hooked up to a machine to drain her always flowing blood to fill tanks with it, converting it into fuel. And they'd drained all the storage tanks and left weeks ago.

I love the way you integrated the "lessons" from this episode

This episode was the episode i new i was hooked for the rest!

Currently running a DC game and the Joker has arrived. It can be tough running a ruthless villain that finds joy in the most heinous of things. A lot of times, I opt out of running certain villains depending on my players specifically because of how they might feel. I was nervous about running the Joker but my fiance was up for it and we talked about the possibilities so that I knew how to crank the dial. It's also nice to know people understand that it's the character, not you. It's also why when I run my superpets game, no animals will die. I'd end up breaking my own heart in that situation.

I absolutely love your videos. I take something away new every single video from an episode And your passion about what you are discussing absolutely comes through.

"Vox Machina, come hang out in Whitestone" ...how dare you?

Man, the Sun Tree moment....

Imma need a video about that curse of strahd story, sounds wild. Great video as always.

This is amazing! I stumbled across this video in my recommended videos. Now I HAVE to dig up episode 1 and watch them all.

I love that Liam is wearing an NCR tshirt 😍

The niche protection tactic of "you can only attempt this roll if you're trained in the skill" is part of the ruleset for certain skills in Pathfinder 1e-since this is the system Critical Role used pre-stream, I'm assuming that at some point Matt decided to port this rule over for the 5e game. I think another good lesson here is: if you feel like the system you're playing doesn't cover some specific thing you want, patching in a rule from another system can be a great solution.

Incredible vid as always.

Would also like to say Happy Birthday (Belated)! Also appreciate the niche creep discussion. I paly in one game where every time skill challenges/rolls come up the other players always have those skills - even Thieves' Tools, which my rogue had. And if I didn't roll well, they certainly did. Kind of deflating honestly so thanks for bringing it up.

The Sun Tree moment may well be entirely Matt’s own idea, but after DMing Curse of Strahd I immediately drew a parallel to the gallows at the crossroads, where the party finds a duplicate of themselves swinging in a noose. In fact, all throughout the Briarwood arc I’ve felt I noticed little pieces of CoS, albeit condensed and remixed, and no I don’t think it’s just because it involves vampires. Couldn’t prove it, but I think Matt’s very familiar with Curse of Strahd, and the ways he steals from it are very smart and brought a grin to my face every time.

It is always fun to see the different CR youtube people I love talk about each other.

@11:21 Fun fact: the map shown here directly influenced the map of Whitestone which was later updated and included in the Tal'dorei Campaign guide, and Tal'dorei Reborn. The actual city structures and layout are nearly identical, with just some minor resizing and obvious colonization done. Pretty freakin neat, considering this was really the start of those seeds, and from then on nearly all of the maps shown in CR at the table were 1-for-1 included into those published works.

The Briarwood arch was our first glimpse into some of the twisted brilliance in Matt's mind.

Damn, really leaving us in the dark about 23:00?

This episode was the one that made Critical Role *stick* for me. It just kinda had everything and really got me hooked for C1, having already watched a fair bit of C2 which was (in my opinion) much more engaging

I would say Grog did have a -2 Intelligence modifier, but an 18 on a skill roll does succeed on a lot of skill checks. And Matt is correct that this bit of architecture would fall in Grog's expertise. So it's more Grog's niche than Percy's, since Percy was more of a homebody, sure the Whitestone heir may have known or been taught about Stone Giants, and even knew giants lived in mountains near the border of his kingdom, but actually seeing the structure and connecting the dots from his childhood is another matter. I do enforce a degree of niche protection, but that's usually represented by the player in question getting advantage, or getting to add proficiency from an appropriate skill due to their background. (not necessarily only 1 of the 2 skills provided by their background)

Happy Birthday, Mike :)

I have a bad cold and this made me like life for 29:38 secs

Well that's it, you have covered up to the point I started the series. I never could get into CR, but thought id give it one more try after the amazon series and started from this episode, I've made it to 50ish now. Originally I thought this is where I would stop watching these demystified vids, but seeing all of the effort you put in to giving context to what were basically recap vids for me, I think I'll probably keep watching

22:16 Eh! Gotta love Jay and Adam!

I'm curious if Matt created the sparkstone because Marisha came to him about wanting to do more damage/cool stuff in wildshape, or if Matt knew his partner well enough to guess she would want flaming hands? Especially now that we've seen how much Marisha enjoys playing as a Monk, to the point where her younger self for one of the one-shots was a monk build.

your lessons with dming has actually helped me with my own dming so thank you

Happy birthday!

Since we’re closing in on the 30s: If I recall episodes 31, 33, and 35 had some tech issues that caused the VODs to be split into two parts and some stuff went missing in between. It’s much more noticeable in the podcast when there’s just random silence for a couple minutes. Those three might be a bit tricky recap-wise cuz of the missing content and I don’t know if there’s anything out there that contains that missing content unless you just pull from the relevant LoVM episodes. 🤔

19:59 Oh... hi Laudna. But in all seriousness this episode got me hooked on Campaign 1. It makes the Briarwoods unforgivable for me at least.

Yay! CRD time again!

I look forward to each episode of this series, I truly hope you get enough followers to go weekly! And happy belated 35th birthday🎉

I play smart, naturally curious characters on the rare occassions when I'm not DMing. Last session, I got incredibly frustrated, because it felt like everyone - even the joke character who hardly pays attention and is just there to cause mayhem and have a good time - had more information than me. I'd have no problem if it were a nat 20, because then at least them having more information would make sense on a meta level - this was a niche within a niche, an obscure bit of trivia that somehow got suck in their head, as it does sometimes, and even the dummies can have smart ideas sometimes. But there were no nat 20s. There weren't even rolls. More specifically, I was the only one rolling - everyone else just... Knew. That's what ticked me off most.

19:55 hello Laudna!

Definitely one of my favorite episodes of CR cause it makes it so clear that these guys are evil. There is no room for mercy. It is just crush them. And honestly that's generally how I like to play and DM. I want the villains to be evil, the be able to relish in the victory. Now does this definitely need to be handled carefully? Absolutely. I don't do stuff this blatant cause there is a kid who is less then 18 in my game. Do I make sure all of my Players are ok with stuff like this before hand? Yes. Because you don't want to traumatize the players. The Characters on the otherhand... (Reminds me of how I made one of my player's monks absolutely terrified of Vampires to where he wouldn't sleep at night and spent all night sharpening stakes and having whole braids of garlic on him at all times. Good times!)

The thing I like about the Grog int. joke roll. It that it is fun, and it is not game-breaking.