Critical Recap: Critical Role C3E30 “Reunion & Revelation”

Hello! Welcome to Critical Recap! I’m Dani Carr, the Critical Role Lore Keeper. Let’s dive into our recap of Critical Role Campaign 3 Episode 30 Reunion & Revelation!

FIST OF THE RUINER

Bells Hells head towards the Calloway’s hideout with Birdie and Hondir, riding their two crawlers into the Hellcatch Valley. As they cross a long bridge over a ravine, they pass another crawler heading to Bassuras. FCG recognizes the driver’s affiliation by their face tattoos, which indicate a high ranking member of a crawler gang: the Fist of the Ruiner. As they near the end of the bridge, Orym spots a person in the distance, as well as a flare. A net trap shoots out of the ground, but both crawlers clear it, making it to the other side of the bridge and onto the mesa.

Immediately, a large automaton war machine emerges from around the rocks – a Ruin-Crawler with mounted rifles and a machine gun-like device, called the Kshatriya Special, and multiple members of the Fist of the Ruiner. Their leader, Maricris, demands that they stop and leave their belongings. Imogen places the backpack with the bomb against the front leg of the Ruin-Crawler, detonating it and damaging the crawler. A fight breaks out between Bells Hells and the crawler gang.

Imogen uses lightning in an attempt to destroy the Kshatriya Special, but this causes the bullets to explode and fire rapidly at the group before the barrel bursts and the gun breaks. Hondir is knocked unconscious in the chaos. The group is hit with a vitriolic sphere from a mage, causing both FCG and Imogen to go unconscious twice from the continuing damage, but they get back on their feet thanks to potions. Birdie is knocked unconscious, but her crawler runs over Maricris in the process. The fight continues and eventually, the Ruin-Crawler itself retreats to escape the heavy damage and drives off a cliff, unable to see due to Laudna’s darkness spell.

THE CALLOWAY LAYAWAY

Healing is handed out and everyone is back on their feet. The group wonders if they’ll now be marked as enemies of the Fist of the Ruiner, who worship the god who attempted to destroy Marquet and turned a third of the continent into a desert during the Calamity. They take some rifles and some gold, then continue into the valley to the Calloway Layaway. After an hour’s travel and a short rest for those not driving, they arrive at the hideout; a former safe house within a cliff face.

Birdie has transformed much of the interior into a beautiful garden, cultivated by several purple stones hanging from the ceiling; Imogen recognizes these purple stones as similar to the one she once had. Birdie recommends they don’t touch the crystals – they were made by Ira for the plants and it’s unhealthy for others to handle them. She takes them to the laboratory where Fearne is reunited with her elven father, Ollie, and the group is unsettlingly reacquainted with Ira Wendagoth, the Nightmare King, who is at work on a large enchanted telescope.

Fearne gives Ollie the green lens, which Ira calls a Veilscatter Scope. This is precisely what Ira had requested from Morrigan, Fearne’s nana. It is a cross-section of his work in espionage and can reveal the weave of magic, as well as pierce through magical defenses against scrying. Ira lets Laudna look through the telescope out towards the mesa. When he applies the lens, she sees leylines appear in the sky and meet at a nexus point over a distant jungle. He then shows her Ruidus, but it’s hard for her to focus on the ruddy moon.

OLLIE’S TALE

Ollie explains that their interest in the moon began with Fearne’s birth under a Ruidus flare. Ollie has a gift from his mother that he calls the Squint – he gets glimpses of possibilities when he’s in danger, flashes of choices that he can pick between. When he saw Ruidus in the sky in the Feywild, he had a full vision. He saw the red light decaying the Feywild and their home crumbling, with Birdie’s silhouette reaching towards it before it devoured them. Now he wonders if it was Fearne that he saw.

Worried they’d brought the moon with them because of Fearne, they sought aid from the courts, but their reputation made that difficult. Ruidus disappeared and later, an Unseelie agent threatened them not to tell anyone what they saw. The Calloways followed the agent to the Sablecast Grounds and pierced their illusion to find Ruidus still in the sky. The Unseelie were conspiring with Exandrian military and Ollie didn’t trust what they were building, so they stole an item from the machine and took it to Morrigan. They left Fearne with her for safekeeping and sought out Ira in Exandria for his knowledge.

Orym asks about the Exandrians that Ollie saw – Otohan Thull was one and the other was an older elven man. Ollie clarifies that their work with the telescope is to determine what Ruidus is and what it is trying to do before the solstice, in the hopes of stopping it. Ira claims that their interests are aligned; he can’t play with a destroyed world, after all. Besides, if they stop him, they’ll learn nothing about Ruidus.

MORRIGAN THE FATESTITCHER

Bells Hells let Ira return to his work. Ollie tells them about the power of the Moontide Crown. He could see in the dark, could draw power from both moons, and create illusions – some of them violent. Orym asks how the Calloways met. Ollie was in a wandering troupe of magical singers and thieves. He met a woman who out-fleeced him and instantly fell in love. That was about 12 years ago and they’ve been in Exandria for about 6 years. They discuss the timeline difference between themselves and Fearne. Ira also thinks Morrigan likely stretched out her limited time with Fearne for as long as she could.

Ollie apologizes for the stolen time, which they didn’t anticipate. Morrigan is an outlier fey, a hag with no coven who is the guardian of her own fane and does favors for people who ask. Fearne points out that in order for Morri to do favors, there has to be an exchange. Was Fearne an exchange for a favor? Both Birdie and Ollie grow pale, but Birdie claims that there was no exchange, that Ira said Morrigan would make the lens for them.

MOON’S HAUNTED

Ira has finished installing the lens and Imogen volunteers to look through the telescope. As she approaches, Chetney asks the Calloways about the holes in their stories. He wonders if they are now building the same device that the Unseelie Court was building. Ollie asks Ira what they are building exactly as Ira has Imogen look through the telescope.

Imogen can see Ruidus, but now there is something new – a field of energy surrounds the moon, like a lattice weave that evokes a cage. Imogen thinks it’s a prison, holding a god that can’t get out. That’s a new one for Ira. She has trouble gleaning anything else, but knows she is missing something. Orym takes a look and sees the lattice cage, but he spies something else as well. He pulls Imogen back for a look and they both see the red storm momentarily clear, revealing a city on the moon.

That is it for Episode 30 of Critical Role!

FINAL THOUGHTS

• Holy shit y’all, there’s a city on the moon and possibly a miniature Divine Gate surrounding it! What the fuck is up with that?!
• Morrigan is a confirmed Feywild hag! Was Fearne given to Morrigan as an exchange for the lens? Or was the protection that Morrigan extended simply done in her own way?
• I knew those Gnarlrock shards would show up again!

Anyway, catch Episode 31 on Thursday, August 18th at 7pm Pacific on twitch.tv/criticalrole and on youtube.com/criticalrole or a week later on our podcast. Is it Thursday yet?