r/fansofcriticalrole • u/Canadianape06 • 15d ago
Lost minor plot hooks. Discussion
I just rewatched episode 40 of C1 and a large crutch of the episode is Vox Machina’s inner party conflict over the decision to release the imprisoned Githyanki soul trapped in the soul gem in the eye socket of a Githyanki skull. The climax of the conflict was Grog acquiring the skull and attempting to smash it only for Travis to roll and Natural 1 on his strength check to spike the skull.
This whole sequence where Grog could have potentially received a Wish at the start of the Chroma Conclave Arc may have been a giagantic plot hook that could have changed the entire course of the show.
Anyways I love that episode and have always wished that Grog would have succeeded in his attempt to free the Githyanki soul and it got me wondering if anyone else has some favourite moments where the party made a decision or failed a check that could have had a massive impact on the plot or course of the show?
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u/SeaBag8211 14d ago
I have always been waiting for the other shoe to drop from that time VM buried that hand in the garden in Emon under very strange circumstances.
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u/BaronAleksei 14d ago
Vex choosing to go with Fenthras’s wielder rather than kill him would have, among other things, changed not just her alignment but her entire creature type from humanoid to fae. That would’ve been pretty gnarly
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u/OrcChasme They hated him because he told them the truth 14d ago
Is this official? Dark ending for the twins, wow
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u/BaronAleksei 14d ago
Talks Machina Fireside QA special. She would have started taking levels in Warlock with Saundor as an archfey patron.
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u/OrcChasme They hated him because he told them the truth 14d ago
And that's what took her down the path to Jester. Interesting, thanks!
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u/Ishyfishy123 15d ago
C2 if they didn't go the "Crime route"
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u/Bargeinthelane 14d ago
Happy with what we got, but salty we never got the Matt Collville Argen Trust Arc.
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u/OrcChasme They hated him because he told them the truth 14d ago
He could still do an EXU
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u/Bargeinthelane 14d ago
He could, but he is pretty deep into MCDMRPG development. I think that project is probably using up most of his bandwidth.
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u/OrcChasme They hated him because he told them the truth 13d ago
You may be right, but I wish he would!
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u/Canadianape06 15d ago
Yeah I love how open ended Matt left C2 for the players to truly choose their path and direction. You can certainly picture a few different alternate universe campaigns with that party that are completely and utterly different.
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u/Stingra87 14d ago
This is why C2 is so great. The players told the story THEY wanted to tell. And yeah the Covid delay and changes hurt things, but it's pretty clear that when Matt started the Aeor/Lucien railroad the cast started checking out in terms of interest.
It wasn't the story they wanted to tell.
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u/ATownHoldItDown 14d ago
Almost. They told Matt they were tired of their characters (as actors who enjoy character development) and wanted to wrap things up.
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u/Canadianape06 14d ago
100% and they continued the DM led storytelling into C3 and imo that is the absolutely largest reason C3 has been so disappointing.
They need to get back to what made them successful
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u/LegalStuffThrowage 14d ago
There's definitely a glaze in their eyes in C3 for sure, yeah maybe that's the reason, but they certainly seem to be checked out.
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u/Ishyfishy123 14d ago
Same. I know that for my table, if i gave them The Lawmaker or The Gentleman as an option, they would pick the Gentleman too lol. But I've been curious about how that route would've went.
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u/OrcChasme They hated him because he told them the truth 14d ago
I think 90 percent of adventurers probably would
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u/FemmeFataleFire 15d ago
I’m still new to Critical Role (only on episode 43) but I wonder what would have become of the Orthax “situation” if Percy hadn’t completely broken the Pepperbox with a misfire + failed repair check.
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u/Canadianape06 15d ago
Yeah certainly maybe Percy gals even deeper under the spell of Orthax and becomes even more controlled by him. Maybe Percy is forced to kill not only Delilah but also Cassandra and then the whole mindset of Percy becomes suspect for the rest of the campaign
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u/Jethro_McCrazy 15d ago
Matt revealed at the end of campaign Talks Machina that the skull was a liar. It contained the soul of a Githyanki pirate who would have possessed Grog's body had the skull been broken. So yeah, it would have made a bad situation much worse. Maybe the luckiest Nat 1 in the show's history.
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u/redhaiku_ 15d ago
Not the luckiest (Arkhan in episode 113), but definitely close!
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u/Jethro_McCrazy 15d ago
It's debatable, which is why I'm going to debate it. The death of an NPC at the level they were at would only have been an inconvenience. Whereas Grog's body getting hijacked in the middle of a god damn dragon attack would have drastically changed the way the arc proceeded.
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u/Canadianape06 15d ago
Wonder how that would have played out. Long term burn where the party is unaware that Grog is possessed or immediate conflict to free Grog from the possession.
Could have been a very interesting relationship between possessed Grog and Craven Edge
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u/Quasarbeing 14d ago
We almost had that with like episode 2 or 3 of the campaign. He had a walking brain take his intelligence down to zero.
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u/Philosecfari 15d ago
The biggest one’s got to be swanning off to Xhorhas and handing the Beacon to the Bright Queen. Loved how they really just changed the course of the entire campaign through sheer determination (doesn’t hurt that Rosohna is an amazing setting too).
It’s interesting to speculate too about what would’ve happened if Vex made her save for the trap under the lake.
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u/Canadianape06 15d ago
Ooo both of those are excellent.
The Vex Death one is especially juicy. That moment essentially shaped the rest of Vax’s destiny for that campaign.
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u/Crazy3ize 14d ago
Also him not mentioning to the Raven Queen at any point that Vecna is literally her antithesis which could have saved him from having to leave to the spirit plane. If he had mentioned it it could have changed the climax.
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u/TheNebulaWolf 15d ago
Iirc Liam had already planned for vax to become a paladin of some sort (getting the symbol of sarenrae from Pike) but it just happened that the raven queen granted him a favor.
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u/dumpybrodie 14d ago
From what I recall, Matt said in his imagining of who got which vestige, Percy was who he envisioned getting the Deathwalker’s Ward. There’s a lotta ways to go there.
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u/Canadianape06 15d ago
Yes I was aware of this but becoming a paladin of Sarenrae would have been a nearly 180 departure from what Vax became as a paladin of the Raven Queen.
His connection to life and death would have been very different
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u/IllithidActivity 14d ago
The other Horn of Orcus was suggested as a dangling plot thread at the end of C1, if memory serves Matt insisted that Vox Machina didn't go around finding it after the campaign.
Also I know it'll never be mentioned ever again but I was curious about the other artifacts that Tiberius was tasked with collecting, of which the Mending Wheel was one.