Critical Recap: Wildemount Wildlings E1 “Welcome, Campers!”

Hello! Welcome to Critical Recap! I’m Dani Carr, the Critical Role Lore Keeper. Let’s dive into our recap of Wildemount Wildlings Episode 1: Welcome, Campers!

WRITER’S ROOM

Before the game begins, Game Master Sam Riegel sits down with seven kids – Kestrel, Greta, Maximus, Allyn, Marlowe, Penny, and Ronin – to brainstorm monsters, items, and encounters for the game. They create Gub Gub, a flying pig monster with many legs and a prehensile tongue that leaves tracks of depression. Now, to the Menagerie Coast!

THE OLGAS

Welcome to Wildemount Wildlings, a camp for kids to learn how to be adventurers. It is run by Veth Brenatto of the Mighty Nein, with her husband Yeza assisting with potion making and their son Luc working as a counselor. The last day of camp is graduation day, with campers graduating into their higher camper ranks – Daintyfeet, Threebelows, Greenhorn, Just Shy, and Wildlings. However, four Daintyfeet campers have received no merit badges and have been relegated to the OLGA cabin – Oops, Let’s Go Again!

The other campers are rewarded with a trip to the Do Not Hike trail, while the OLGAs are judged by a very disappointed Veth. The OLGAs are Kai (he/him, played by Aleks Le), a half-elven rogue; Skullcrusher “Sky” Bloodforge (she/her, played by Eden Riegel), a halfling barbarian; Jessep Nimblethorpe (she/her, played by Libe Barer), a tall air genasi sorcerer; and Padmund Pondhop (he/him, played by Brennan Lee Mulligan), a frog wizard.

Padmund is focused on making his card game, which his best friend Kai draws. Kai is a laidback jokester, an orphan raised by bandits who is proud of his arrest record. Sky and Jessep are best friends, as well. Sky, daughter of Othe barbarians, doesn’t want to use her rage or violence. She was inspired to do magic after seeing a ginger wizard turn a toy into a real unicorn to comfort a sad child. Jessep’s parents are professors and her severe anxiety causes her to cast the wrong spell when she panics.

NEW COUNSELORS

Luc brings out Beau and Yasha, who Padmund (a fan of the Mighty Nein) immediately recognizes. Veth wants Beau and Yasha to discipline the kids and help them earn a merit badge before the end of the day. Veth calls them outcasts, but she has a soft spot for them. If they fail to earn a badge, they will not be allowed to return to camp in the future. Luc leads the OLGAs to the training ground while Veth talks to Beau and Yasha about the OLGAs being losers – which Padmund overhears.

Veth remembers that Beau and Yasha agreed to come so they could spend time with kids and decide if they are ready to have children of their own. They are still on the fence. They’ve been to the Astral Sea, but this decision is the hardest thing they’ve ever done and they are worried about whether they will be good parents. Veth, worried about Beau and Yasha hurting the kids, makes them drink a potion that Caleb sent – it makes them both weaker, mechanically reducing them from Level 20 to Level 3.

TRIALS

Everyone arrives at the training ground and Beau gives the kids a motivational speech about hitting rock bottom. She reveals that their first activity is to knock a translucent pine cone out her hands by any means necessary. Kai goes first, using an impressive flip and his whip to snag the pine cone. Jessep is next, her magic working enough for her to cast infestation at Beau, but her second attempt at a spell causes her to shout all her words. Kai gives her his pine cone in solidarity.

Yasha holds the pine cone for Sky, who successfully takes the pine cone with her strength and sticky fingers after her attempt to use Minor Illusion fails to fool Yasha. Padmund, knowing there is no time limit, ritually casts identify, find familiar, and unseen servant, taking thirty minutes for his turn. He casts gust, using his camp pin as his focus (as secretly the camp means quite a lot to him) but this fails. Instead, he arm wrestles Yasha, using his poisoned skin to distract her and allowing his unseen servant to grab the pine cone.

Yasha preps them to play Tug of War, or as she calls it, the Pull of Peace. It’s the kids versus Yasha and Beau. Sky’s miscast spell accidentally gives her team a greasy rope. Padmund uses a spell slot for the first time to cast floating disc and ties the rope to the disc, but Beau intimidates him with her monk skills. Kai pretends to be injured (after donning two mustaches) and Beau and Yasha tend to him while Jessep grabs the rope. So the OLGA cabin wins as Beau and Yasha wrestle with their new maternal instincts.

SPIRITS

Padmund, despite their win, is still feeling low. He confesses that he overheard Veth call them losers and he agrees with her. The other kids try to cheer him up, reminding him that he’s great at magic and that they’ve already won two challenges together. Yasha and Beau are feeling confident about their parenting skills and consider adopting Kai. Beau encourages the kids to feel good about their accomplishments and to believe in themselves.

The last activity is Hide & Seek. Everyone has to find Yasha and they have until curfew to find her. Beth the camp healer (and Luc’s crush) rejuvenates everyone’s spell slots and the group counts to 669 at Veth’s order. Yasha searches for her hiding spot and hears Yeza working in his cabin. As she walks by, a puff of smoke shoots out of a vent, making her feel drunk. Yeza runs out and tells her that he’s been working on a re-nebriation potion for Veth but it’s been having an opposite effect. Yasha will feel drunk for the next hour – but she does find a hiding spot.

The kids split into two teams, with Sky and Jessep using a scroll of flying to find Yasha while Kai and Padmund search on the ground. Beau goes to the Curfew Creature Tower, where she meets Mishi, the Curfew Creature. Mishi punishes campers who stay out past curfew, but no one ever stays out past curfew. Beau, recognizing that Mishi is vain and likes trinkets, gives her 50 silver so she can stay in the tower to watch the kids.

SIZZLE SIZZLE

Meanwhile, Kai convinces Padmund to sneak into the admin building with him. Kai uses Padmund’s frog familiar, Archibald, to break a window and accidentally kills the frog in the process. Padmund is aghast, but as he can resummon Archibald, he isn’t too upset. Padmund mends the window and Kai looks for their file folders, finding them and learning that they don’t say anything good about them inside.

Beau notices that Kai and Padmund are missing, so comes down to look for them. As she searches, she hears a strange noise – Gub Gub the Flying Pig has arrived. Gub Gub lands on top of Yasha and puts her in his mouth. Beau, Sky, and Jessep fight Gub Gub, but Beau is also grabbed and taken by Gub Gub. Sky and Jessep run away to find Kai and Padmund. Gub Gub stomps away into the camp and Yasha and Beau, overcome by the depression from its tracks, weep in each other’s arms and bemoan that they don’t deserve to be parents.

That is it for Episode 1 of Wildemount Wildlings!

FINAL THOUGHTS

• Archibald spent his life wrestling with existentialism, so him living and dying in one episode feels poetic and correct. Still, Justice for Archibald.
• Gub Gub the Flying Pig is an intense monster. I can’t wait to see what else the kids came up with.
• Who else wants to play Padmund’s card game?

Catch Episode 2 of Wildemount Wildlings on Thursday, April 10th at 7pm Pacific on beacon.tv, where Beacon members get access to the entire episode, podcast included! The episode will also release on twitch.tv/criticalrole and on youtube.com/criticalrole and a week later on our podcast. Is it Thursday yet?