It is incredibly rare the I ever have the ability to catch a live showing of Critical Role, one of – if not the most popular stream of folks playing Dungeons and Dragons online. Naturally the pull of a group of talented voice actors getting together to play one of my favorite games and tell great stories was too much to resist. It drove me to find alternate ways to enjoy the show – leading me to explore their youtube channel and podcast feed. Even after I foundout how I could listen, it can be challenging to dedicate three or more hours per episode, so I often find myself behind the times. Seeing as I’ve had a bit of extra time on my hands lately, I’ve been doing my best to catch up on the current campaign.
at Critical Role Store
I’m not alone when I say that there are a number of moments both in and out of character that have struck me powerfully as I experience this show. It resonates through “critters” the world over. Not only in the meta aspect of watching a collection of friends play this game as they have for years before a single camera had been turned on them, but in character moments masterfully told as trained actors and storytellers would craft. On more than one occasion I have found myself reflecting on what just happened in that episode much as I would reading a chapter in a good book. How did the characters get themselves in that scenario? How will these moments ripple into their futures and those of the characters around them? If it were me, what decisions would I make in that scenario? How would they be the same, how would they differ, and why?
It was in episode 95 of the second campaign that such a moment clung to me. I will not belabor the point with a drawn-out story recap, but in order to convey the moment in a way that will make sense to those who are either unfamiliar with the series or are – like me – only just now making their way through it, I will be brief. The character of Jester, played by Laura Bailey, has always been a delight to watch whenever she gets the spotlight. It’s the natural state of a young, innocent – or at least innocent-ish – character following a trickster god who just wants a little harmless chaos thrown into the world. But that ended up being the crux of the issue. After ninety-four episodes of snide remarks about how The Traveler and his followers are basically a cult – The Traveler himself reveals in episode 95, Blessings in Disguise, that he isn’t a god so much as an archfey that appeared for a time in the first Critical Role campaign. He never planned on being anything like a god until he met Jester and she inspired him through her devotion and her ability to draw others to follow the Traveler too.
I filled the stunned silence that followed that announcement remembering a phrase that Jester had said in a previous episode regarding her faith in the Traveler. “I never set out to convert anybody. I just had this really great friend I wanted to introduce to people.” I sat back in my chair, my head resting in my hand, and a smile broke across my face. She did it. She realized what it’s always been about. The folks that had followed the Traveler didn’t even really start down that road because they wanted what the Traveler had for them. They knew that whatever Jester said was good and worthwhile must be good and worthwhile because she was. Folks signed on to follow a god that few to none had ever heard of before – making plans to rally ’round the light of a volcano and talk about how cool the Traveler is and coming up with new and creative ways to deface ancient texts – because Jester told them a story they could not just walk away from.
Jester never talked about rituals, symbols, dogma, or expectations. She couldn’t even if she wanted to because there weren’t any to talk about. All she could be was herself. Part of that were stories of this person she met when she was a little girl who helped her get through the challenging parts of her childhood and made her smile when it felt like it was just her and her mother against the world. The story and Jester herself drew people close, letting them explore what was there for them. Even when her friends would whisper about The Traveler being a cult and worthy of suspicion, seeing the way he worked in and through their friend made a number of them question whether or not there might have been something there worth following. After all – he helped that young girl trapped doodling in her room turn into the Jester they all loved. While it was the Marisha Ray‘s monk – Beau – who told Jester, “You’re the story,” no one pointed out how powerful that was in accomplishing their goals with more clarity than the party’s other cleric.
If Jester is the wild card, Caduceus Clay – played by Taliesin Jaffe – is the voice of reason. Watching him gently try to nudge this herd of screaming, biting, cats towards truth, decency, and peace is a large part of why he has become my favorite character of the Mighty Nein. Confronted with the unprecedented scenario of helping a would-be-deity figure out how to continue down a road he didn’t want to go down and, quite frankly, is sometimes annoyed by – Caduceus’ softly spoken exhortation struck me more than any other aspect of this reveal.
“You don’t want liars. You want storytellers. You want showmanship. You want people who will create events, create art, create things that people will see that will confound them – and you want to show them the truth.”
Those last words – “things that people will see that will confound them and you want to show them the truth” – rattled in my head and shook everything they touched. The juxtaposition of confusion and revelation, mystifying and enlightening people – especially within the context of religion and the stories that drive and change us – traveled so hand-in-hand with my own real-world experiences. I had spent my entire life hearing people talk about God, about why church and faith were supposed to be things of great value in making me a good and decent person – but it took nearly two decades before I saw faith be an ever-present factor in a person’s life or saw that faith practice directly impact the way a person lived. When I did, it changed everything.
Even after those stories sunk into my bones and God grew my own faith from them – the largest and strongest points of my continued growth have not been from my years of study or dedication to the disciplines and craft of a life lived for God. It was bearing witness to acts of truest showmanship. Not in the way a scammer or salesperson twists a person into accepting something they don’t want or need – but those moments where truth, passion, and experience collide in a blaze of wonder. Those moments where I was brought face to face with something that confused me, frustrated me, or asked me to step beyond the face value of my own assumptions. They have been a bizarre arrangement of glorious, agonizing, and joyful moments with God and His people that have blown my mind, shaken me loose from the stagnation of comfort, and made me want to walk in just that much more to explore this weird new thing I was only just starting to see.
But there is always more than one sort of story, and not all of them have happy endings. Amid the fun of Jester realizing she pretty much spent way too much money on green fabric for cloaks and my own furious note-taking in preparations to put this article together, there was an undercurrent of bitterness, pain, and anger. Comments about the manipulative nature of religious organizations to abuse and exploit their followers. How those who find comfort in the narrative of religious stories are really just deluding themselves into a false sense of comfort, safety, and even superiority. And all I can say is that I cannot, nor have any desire to, deny those stories either.
As much as I can recount volumes’ worth of tales of God’s goodness, I can also tell far too many of those other stories too. While some of them are distant, cautionary tales we cite from behind pulpits as modern parables – there are still scars left on my friends and family from those who would sing church songs with a bootheel to their throats. Those stories are unpleasant to hear, and yet we cannot deny that they are being spoken over many every day.
There was a time I would get defensive when folks would tell me their hurt stories. I wore rhetoric like the armor of God and plunged my sword of unquestioned truth into the heart of disbelief, but it never found purchase. I was a little kid playing the mighty warrior festooned with cardboard box armaments and a plastic, costume sword. I wasn’t even telling a bad story, merely reciting a laundry list of talking points aimed at destroying opponents – most of which never bothered to take the field of battle in the first place. Since then I have wandered forests of mystery, bathed in rivers of hurts, and spent a lot of time sitting in the dark places asking God why there wasn’t more light there. The stories birthed there were weirder and their reception less certain – but they were also stronger.
We are all storytellers. Some are practiced. Some are reckless. Still others are just stabbing at the darkness hoping plot will fall out. If the goal is to tell a tale to pass the time, you can tell one that reads like a mass market paperback churned out to fill the length of a plane ride or an afternoon on the beach. It’ll be fine. But only when we gather up all the parts of story that runs in us, around us, and through us – let them sink into our bones – will we create something that will confound someone and show them the truth.