Castle Magus

Uncover the backstory of Maud! Where did she come from? Where did she go? Did she get eaten by a giant toad? All that and more!

Featuring:
Jesse Nowack as Maud
Stephan Krosecz as Everybody Else

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This is Jesse's session 0 as Maud. Not sure where the name "Maud" actually comes from, though, since the character was called "Mittens" for the entirety of this one, even in a narrative way by the player and DM. I'm guessing that is a question that will probably be asked and possibly even answered when they post the discussion video for this later.

This one is almost the opposite of Karna's in terms of tone. Whereas Karna's started very light and remained so for most of it, then got a lot darker toward the end, Maud's story started pretty dark (after a bit of fluff at the very start) and remained so for most of it, then ended on a (relatively) lighter note.

I hope Skitterkit appears again at some point. Rufflepaw, on the other hand, can die slowly in a fire, for all I care. Although that would possibly traumatize Maud/Mittens if it happened and she found out about it (or saw it happen).

(EDIT) And here is the discussion video for the above. (/EDIT)

They're done. For now, anyway. (Follow up to this.)

It's only five episodes, so I'll just embed them all here, for the hell of it.

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( Youtube embeds behind cut )

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There's also an "after each episode discussion show" called Tales Unraveled, which I will not be embedding here, but there's the link, so yeah.

And that's it. At least until they record more episodes over the course of this month, apparently, though who knows when they'll get those all edited and polished up for release. The individual "session zero" episodes for Karna, Maud, and Martin will be made available at some point in the future as well. (Or, alternatively, are already available, if you pay them cash money via Twitch or Youtube membership or Patreon or whatever, none of which I am nor will be doing in the foreseeable future.)

So... I liked it a lot. I especially like the pared down edited nature of it, which cuts out all the chaff of excessive math, trying to figure out spells, an hour or however long of playing a gambling game, etc. That was always a problem with Critical Role for me, because in that, pretty much nothing is edited out. Which, I mean, it's fine for what it is, but I much prefer an hour or maybe two of just the "good stuff" (with the extra bells and whistles of art, music, animations, etc.), compared to four or six hours of all of it (with few, if any, extra bells and whistles). Even so, that's still about seven hours of stuff right here, in the first season. There is also the fact that there are only three players, as opposed to seven or eight or however many they have on Critical Role now, which helps. And it also helps that Nick is playing Karna as a character who is very conflict-avoidant, and that Stephan as a DM is entirely willing to allow the party to avoid fights altogether if it makes sense. Combat was always the least interesting part of Critical Role for me.

I'm not saying I like this better than Critical Role, but... I'm kinda saying I like this better than Critical Role. At least so far.

Maud is still my favorite... but... she does, at times, veer a wee bit too far into almost chaotic stupid territory. That said, Jesse is doing it because it's (usually) funny and is in character for Maud, not for the purpose of being a contrary dick, and it hasn't caused any real problems... yet...