Web Video / Critical Role: Campaign Two

"The only thing we've ever done consistently is take care of our friends."^note Top to bottom, left to right: Caduceus Clay, Mollymauk Tealeaf, Jester Lavorre, Fjord Stone, Caleb Widogast, Yasha Nydoorin, Beauregard Lionett, and Nott the Brave. Not pictured: Essek Thelyss, Kingsley Tealeaf.

Campaign Two of Critical Role began airing on 11th January 2018. Taking place over twenty years after the events of the first campaign, this new adventure is set on the continent of Wildemount and features a brand new set of player characters. In contrast to the blossoming frontier of Tal'Dorei, Wildemount is steeped in the rust of the ancient Dwendalian Empire: a nation where security is bought with fealty, money flows to the rich and devious, and whispers of discontent lurk in the shadows of gilded walls. This campaign concluded on June 3rd, 2021.

It also has an abridged Animated Adaptation in Crit Recap Animated.

On January 25th, 2023, it was announced that the campaign will be getting an Animated Adaptation named Mighty Nein that, like The Legend of Vox Machina, will air exclusively on Amazon Prime.

The cast for Campaign Two:

• Matthew Mercer as the Dungeon Master.
• Liam O'Brien as Caleb Widogast, human wizard (accompanied by his cat familiar Frumpkin).
• Laura Bailey as Jester Lavorre, tiefling cleric.
• Ashley Johnson as Yasha Nydoorin, aasimar barbarian.
• Travis Willingham as Fjord, half-orc warlock.
• Taliesin Jaffe as Mollymauk Tealeaf, tiefling blood hunter, and Caduceus Clay, firbolg cleric.
• Marisha Ray as Beauregard Lionett, human monk.
• Sam Riegel as Nott the Brave, goblin rogue.

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The campaign provides examples of the following tropes:

A-I

• Aborted Arc: As is the nature of Dungeons & Dragons, especially the more sandbox-style of this campaign compared to the previous one, several subplots Matt introduced ended without a more concrete resolution due to various factors. These range from the players deciding not to follow up on it, choices in character that cause changes in the direction, or simply the characters learning/revealing things earlier than expected. For example: The Knights of Requital subplot in Zadash ends up being dropped due to a combination of bad rolls, the characters deciding to leave Zadash, and the group mostly forgetting about the characters involved due to other events. Matt later explained that a major reason for some of these dropped plot points was because Molly's death was something unexpected that caused all his planned reveals and story lines to change in response.
• Above Good and Evil: Most of the archmages the party interacts with (even the ones they have a genuine friendship with) believe that traditional conceptions of morality are beneath them. Part of Caleb's character development has been growing in magical power without losing sight of his humanity. He does all right, as some of said archmages have remarked on how unusually humble he is for such a powerful wizard. His determination to remain so is largely due to his former Evil Mentor, Trent Ikithon, whose Moral Myopia is on a level most people couldn't dream of. In fact, when Trent Ikithon is commanded via magic to "empathize," even when he fails his saving throw the spell fails - because he is by nature incapable of that experience.
• Abusive Parents: Beau's father neglected and belittled her, and then, when she became a teenage delinquent, bribed a Cobalt Soul monk to kidnap her. He is also heavily implied to have been physically violent towards her at least a few times. As for her mother, she seems to have the personality of an Extreme Doormat, letting her husband get away with anything, but Beau still displays affection for her.
• Absurdly High-Stakes Game: When the party first meets the Gentleman, he challenges one of them to a gambling game in order to test their mettle and their luck. Fjord volunteers and defeats him handily, earning the Nein a place in the Gentleman's employ. However, Matt later mentioned on Twitter that if they had lost, the Gentleman would have made them captives and sold them as slaves.
• Academy of Evil: At first it seems like the Soltryce Academy is being set up as this after it's revealed that Caleb attended it, and was tortured and brainwashed by a teacher there. However, as time goes on it becomes clear it's not the whole school that's bad, just a couple of teachers who are surreptitiously taking advantage of students.
• Accent Interest: Becomes an occasional problem for Caleb when the party goes to Xhorhas, as his accent is very much indicative of being from the Empire.
• Accent Slip-Up: Fjord occasionally does this before he goes back to using his original accent. Most notably, this happens when he wakes up from one of his warlock patron dreams, causing Caleb to take notice and become suspicious.
• Accidental Misnaming: Played for drama.
  • The party does this often with Veth, still occasionally calling her "Nott" long after she was transformed back into her original form. As this is a serious matter for Veth, they apologize profusely every time.
  • It's also happened twice with Caduceus, both times Fjord accidentally calling him "Molly", after Mollymauk was killed in Episode 26. Given that Caduceus is essentially a fantasy grief counselor, he doesn't let it bother him.

• Action Mom: Veth is one. Her husband and son are in awe of her. In fact, she was one even before the campaign started, as the whole reason she got turned into a goblin in the first place was through a Heroic Sacrifice to save her family from a goblin tribe, during which she actually killed their chief by throwing acid in his face.
• Action Politician: Vess De Rogna, the Cerberus Assembly's Archmage of Antiquity (ie, the Court Mage responsible for overseeing the discovery and handling of ancient magical artifacts) is one. Unlike the rest of the Assembly, who prefer not to get their hands dirty, she likes to personally go dungeon delving in highly dangerous ancient ruins. She's definitely a badass - though she got in over her head with the Tombtakers, and was killed for her trouble.
• Actor Allusion: Taliesin dressed up as Sherlock Holmes for the Halloween episode. In Hetalia: Axis Powers, Britain, voiced by Taliesin, also did the same for the Halloween episode of The World Twinkle.
• A Day in the Limelight:
  • Early in the campaign, Matt would occasionally send all players except one away from the table, while one character deals with a solo segment. Beau has had one in Episode 4, Fjord had one in Episode 5, Caleb had one in Episode 13, and Yasha had one in Episode 20, to name a few.
  • Episode 91 became one for Essek Thelyss, with the Nein spending most of the session with him.
• Affably Evil: Lucien is consistently friendly and jovial with the Nein, treating them like old friends. They even travel with him for a bit as tense but tolerant 'allies,' and he repeatedly leaves them alive when he could have easily killed them. That said, he's still a cult leader seeking the literal end of the world.
  • Muddling things is the question of how much of Lucien's affability might have been due to someone else.
• Afro Asskicker: Shakaste has an impressive white afro to go with his snow-white eyes. There's a reason local folktales call him The Ghost.
• Age-Down Romance: A strange variation happens in the frozen wastes of Eiselcross between [Fjord and Jester. The party encounters a strange ring of statues, all facing a central pedestal. After a series of shenanigans while they try to figure out how to 'activate' the statues (despite having no idea what they would do), Jester]stands on the center pedestal - and instantly has five years of her life drawn from her, aging her up by the same amount. It's definitely played with in that there isn't enough of an age gap between Fjord and Jester for the age-up itself to really make a difference; watching that happen just made Fjord realize how easily he could lose her.
• Agent Peacock: Mollymauk Tealeaf is a flamboyant genderfluid carnie with sinister blood powers and quick blades.
• Agents Dating: Caleb has Unresolved Sexual Tension with agents on both sides of the Empire/Xhorhas conflict. On one hand, there's Astrid, his Old Flame from his days as an Empire patriot; on the other, there's Essek, the powerful and mysterious right hand to the Bright Queen. Both are magically and politically powerful; both are morally ambiguous. After the events of the campaign, he has a relationship with Essek for an unknown amount of time before Caleb parts from him due to differences in lifespans.
• Age-Stereotypical Food: Jester's taste in food is closer to an 11-year-old's than a 20-year-old's - right down to hating veggies. Frequently lampshaded by the rest of the party.
• The Alcoholic: Nott is this. She absolutely needs alcohol to function, and will get more and more irritable and skittish if she has to go without it. Her first request when meeting an enchanter who runs a magic shop in Zadash is for a flask of bottomless whisky - which she then willingly spends several hundred gold on. In the beginning this is mostly Played for Laughs, but when it's revealed that she became an alcoholic to cope with losing her husband and son, being drowned, and getting cursed to become a goblin, it becomes a lot less funny. From then on there's a lot of conflict over her friends trying to help her quit, where said flask of bottomless alcohol gets stolen back and forth several times. After Nott is finally turned back into a halfling, she gives it to Beau. (Beau herself much later passes it on to Kingsley, who could probably use it after all he's been through.)
• Alcoholic Parent: Zigzagged with Nott/Veth. While in goblin form, she is this to her son Luc, though she does her best never to let it endanger him and even has Caduceus magically remove her drunkenness when she has to see him. Eventually, when she transforms back into a halfling, she is able to overcome her drinking problem and be with her family more.
• A Lighter Shade of Black: Despite the fact that he has tortured and broken countless generations of talented children into being brainwashed assassins, Cerberus Assembly propagandist Trent Ikithon is this to some of the worse villains of the campaign. When the party faces off against Obann, a fiendish cult leader trying to release the Angel of Irons, and later against the Eyes of Nine, they even consider teaming up with him.
• All Girls Like Ponies: Jester, who is definitely the girliest of the Nein, loves horses. Apparently when she first left home, she spent most of her gold on a carriage and fancy dresses for the horses that pulled it.
• Aloof Dark-Haired Girl: Yasha comes across like this at first. With time and care she comes out of her shell, and it turns out she doesn't mean to be aloof; she's just cripplingly shy.
• Alpha Bitch: Celia, a rich and cruel woman who snubs Jester at Traveler-con, and according to the Traveler, has a bad habit of going too far in her pranks. She gets the most karmic comeuppance possible when Nott tricks her into permanently gluing a dick statue to her hand.
• All-Loving Hero: Jester definitely counts as this. She has defeated or at least come close to defeating several would-be bosses through The Power of Friendship. Notable successful examples include Essek, a drow court mage and Isharnai, a hag; attempted ones include the dragon turtle and The Inevitable End, an undead drow assassin of Asmodeus. She even seemed to make a bit of a dent in the most dangerous enemy the Nein have yet faced, the potentially world-ending Nonagon.
• Always Chaotic Evil: This campaign plays with and heavily subverts many of the traditional D&D "monsters." At first it seems that the Xhorhasian drow will be a main enemy in the story - but when the party actually goes to Xhorhas, they end up painted in a much more sympathetic light. In fact, Xhorhas is chock full of goblins, gnolls, orcs, bugbears, kobolds, and minotaurs, all of whom are just people trying to get by. In fact, in Xhorhas humans are considered monstrous creatures - and the few humans encountered in Xhorhas tend to be just as feral as the goblins and gnolls one might find elsewhere.
• Amateur Sleuth: Nott and Jester fancy themselves a dynamic detective duo. It's mostly a Running Gag, as neither Nott nor Jester have especially high deductive skills and they mostly end up getting into mischief... but occasionally, and often by accident, they actually find success.
• Amazon Brigade: The ladies of the Nein are universally more physically capable than the gentlemen. Yasha's a hulking outlander, Beau's a tough jock, Nott's a slippery crossbow-wielding fiend, and even Jester has a higher Strength score than anyone but Yasha. Meanwhile, the men of the group include scrawny beanpole wizard Caleb, insecure pretty-boy warlock Fjord, and "unhealthily thin" cleric Caduceus. Let's just say the women do the heavy lifting in this group.
• Amazon Chaser: Beau will melt over a strong woman. She crushes on Yasha within seconds of meeting her, and much later she and Yasha become girlfriends.
• Ambiguous Criminal History: Pretty common for the Mighty Nein, actually.
  • Before the start of the show, Caleb and Nott made a meager living conning farmers out of silvers, and apparently they originally met in a town jail. We know some details of their exploits (for example, Nott ended up in said jail for stealing cherry wine), but most of it is left unexplored.
  • Beau is revealed pretty early on to have a criminal background, knowing Thieves' Cant and having a working knowledge of the criminal underworld - something that is surprising for a monk of the Cobalt Soul. Eventually we find out that her family were wealthy wine merchants, and she had ideas to expand their business, but her overprotective (and abusive) father wouldn't let her do more than balance the books. As revenge she began to sell their fine wine at cut-rates on the black market, and when her father found out, she was summarily shipped off to the Cobalt Soul archive in Zadash through a less-than-legitimate deal with an unscrupulous archivist.
• Ambiguously Evil: The Traveler, Jester's mysterious deity, definitely gives this vibe for most of the campaign. A new god of chaos and trickery, who only Jester can see and hear, he appears to her when she's alone - his face covered in a hood - and encourages her to pull off increasingly dangerous pranks. Naturally, her friends are a little concerned. However, it turns out that the situation is much more complicated and morally grey than it first appears: the Traveler is actually an archfey named Artagan who stumbled across a young Jester while exploring the Material Plane. He truly does care for her, but being a fey has very little understanding of morality or compassion, and ends up harming her terribly before he begins to grow a heart.
  • Caleb's Old Flame, Astrid, also falls into this territory. We know that she went through the same awful torture and brainwashing that Caleb did, which inherently makes her somewhat sympathetic, but she also comes across as extremely ruthless, cutthroat and relentlessly ambitious. It's left up in the air whether or not she is truly on the Nein's side; sometimes she seems to be aiding them, while other times she might very well be leading them into a trap.
• Ambiguously Related: For most of the campaign Jester only has speculation that The Gentleman might be her father. When she confronts him he repeatedly denies it, until Caduceus is able to discern the truth.
• Ambition Is Evil: Astrid has elements of this trope, although she isn't thoroughly evil. Caleb describes her as being very much like Trent herself, and she definitely displays some strong Starscream moments. At the end of the campaign she replaces Trent as the Archmage of Civil Influence. It's unclear whether she will be better than he was, although her hatred for him suggests so.
• Ancient Evil: The final boss of the campaign, Cognouza, is basically a giant corpse by the time it's found. But Lucien and the Nonagon are able to use its death for their own purposes by taking all of its dark power.
• And I Must Scream:
  • When the Nein find him after centuries missing in action, ancient wizard Halas is in a pitiful state. Apparently one of his enemies tricked him into trapping his consciousness in a ruby, and he had been trapped in his own wizard tower ever since. It's somewhat downplayed in that he's shown to not know how long he's been trapped there, and in fact when the Nein tell him he's been missing for centuries he has a very mild panic attack.
  • The state of the citizens of the Cognouza Ward when the Mighty Nein encounter them. Since the disaster that made them this way, the residents have been still alive and trapped in horribly warped flesh-creature forms with their souls unable to move on.
  • In an extremely satisfying case of Laser-Guided Karma, this is how Trent Ikithon spends the rest of their days after their defeat. Kept in the deepest dungeon, permanently bound and gagged, force fed to stay alive, the only thing he can do is think. And think. And think.
• And Man Grew Proud: What eventually ended the civilization of Aeor. Originally one of the most powerful cities around during the Age of Arcanum, their ever-growing ambition led them to try and develop a weapon that would be able to do the impossible and kill a god. When the Calamity was underway, the Prime Deities and Betrayer Gods called a momentary truce and destroyed the city, sending it crashing to the ground. Only the Cognouza Ward was able to escape the destruction by shunting themselves into the Astral Plane, and even then there were consequences.
• And Show It to You: Beau finishes off a demonic enemy in this fashion, but the fiend is much larger than the average human and the awkwardness of reaching all the way around its heart to pull it out is emphasised.
  • Yasha does the same to a strange elemental entity sent by the Stormlord to test her conviction. It's not exactly a heart, as the being in question is made of light, but it is described as similar.
• …And That Little Girl Was Me: Narrative Telephone episode 4 - Liam later confirmed on Twitter that the three children in the fairy tale were Eadwulf, Astrid and Caleb.
• And Your Reward Is Edible: Subverted. After saving Rexxentrum, the capital city of The Empire, from both a full-scale Kryn invasion and the literal unleashing of an ancient god of oblivion, the Nein are rewarded first by being accused of treason and then, after exonerating themselves, by having their hotel paid for. They eagerly decide to eat out on the Empire's dime - only to find out that the bill doesn't cover their meals.
• Anger Born of Worry: Downplayed. When Nott picks a lock and dies from a Power Word Kill trap in the Folding Halls, Caleb gets quite irritated with her, but only briefly.
• Anguished Declaration of Love: After Jester has part of her life force drained from her by a mysterious ring of enchanted statues, Fjord finally confesses his love for her, saying that in that moment he was terrified he'd never get to say it.
• Angry Eyebrows:
  • When the Nein get trapped on a pirate ship, Jester uses the Disguise Self spell to try and make herself look more "pirate-y" - which consists of making her dress tighter and ripped... and tilting her eyebrows downward.
  • Caduceus does something very similar much later in Xhorhas, giving himself an underbite and thick, cross eyebrows to make himself look more rugged.
• Animal Lover:
  • Oremid Hass, a usually strict, cold man, and an incredibly powerful mage of the Cerberus Assembly, turns out to be an absolute sucker for furry critters. Used to great effect when the Nein use Jester's pet weasel Sprinkle to distract him from the fact that they're travelling with Caleb, a wanted man to the Assembly.
  • Jester also loves animals, but is too immature to really take care of them. It's even become a Running Gag that she always kills her pets.
• Animated Credits Opening: The "Your Turn to Roll" intro was animated by Kamille Areopagita and Kevin Areopagita, in the style of their previous D&D Beyond ad with Sam Riegel.
• An Offer You Can't Refuse: The party originally started working for the Gentleman, a Zadash-based mob boss, because he threatened to turn them over to the Crownsguard for acts of terrorism if they didn't cooperate. However, as time went on their relationship with the Gentleman became friendly, eventually even - in the case of Jester - familial.
• Any Last Words?: A meta-example; Matt asks a player this almost word-for-word when Lorenzo kills Molly in Episode 26. Uniquely, they do not have any last words, instead choosing to spit in the face of their killer.
• Appeal to Inherent Nature: When the Nein implore the Bright Queen to end the war, and all the bloodshed that goes along with it, she refuses, saying that the Kryn Dynasty and the Dwendalian Empire have been fighting for centuries, and there is no point in fighting that. It takes the Nein showing her the Dodecahedron and proving that she's been manipulated by demons before she agrees to call it off.
  "The cycle cannot be broken until there is nothing living. All we can do is our best to keep it slow."
• Appeal to Worse Problems: The Nein are finally able to convince The Empire and The Dynasty to end the war because they discover (and are able to prove) that both sides have been infiltrated by a demonic cult using the war as cover to bring about the end of the world. Facing utter destruction, even the Bright Queen is forced to concede that yes, maybe fighting a pointless war isn't the best idea.
• Appearance Angst:
  • Nott and Fjord both suffer from a severe case of this. Fjord has leftover body shame from being relentlessly bullied for his race in the orphanage he grew up in, to the degree that he actually files down his tusks to look more human. Nott, meanwhile, suffers from severe body dysphoria, having always felt like she wasn't meant to be a goblin. It turns out she was originally a halfling cursed with a goblin body. While Nott is eventually able to break the curse and regain her original form, Fjord's struggle with his own insecurity is a big part of his character development.
  • Downplayed, at least in comparison to the other two, with Beau. While she's generally pretty confident, her childhood being belittled and made to feel like a failure by her father has left her with some insecurity about her grooming. When Jester tells her that her hair is pretty, she responds with sudden vulnerability and shyness - apparently she was told her whole life that it was a disgusting rat's nest.
• Apocalypse Cult:
  • The cult of the Angel of Irons is dedicated to releasing their unknown god by assembling demons and undying villains. Suceeding in their goals would spell the end of the world.
  • It turns out Molly also had a past in one of these - in fact, was the charismatic and completely insane leader of one before he was tricked into performing a ritual that shattered his soul and locked away his memories.
• Apocalypse Maiden: Molly turns out to be one of these, unbeknownst to everyone (including him). He is, in fact, a shattered fragment of Apocalypse Cult leader and Person of Mass Destruction Lucien, whose soul was deliberately broken into pieces to prevent him from ending the world. Unfortunately, when he dies it leaves Lucien's soul free to be brought back for his terrible ends. A unique play on the trope, as it's Molly's death which might cause the apocalypse.
• Arc Symbol: Eyes show up in both the Uk'otoa and Eyes of Nine plotlines as symbols of observation and control by otherworldly entities.
• Archaeological Arms Race: A major one is going on in Eiselcross, an arctic wasteland far to the north of both the Dynasty and The Empire, where the ruins of Aeor, a flying city and magocracy that crashed there nearly a thousand years before, lie buried. The legend says that the mages of Aeor developed a weapon that could "kill a god." Little do any of the competing factions and expeditions know that it's actually the city itself which is the weapon.
• The Archmage: Quite a few examples. Most prominent are the Cerberus Assembly, a cabal of court mages who essentially rule The Empire - and as a whole are a recurring villain. However, the party also encounter a number of friendly archmages, most notably Yussa, an independent and politically unaligned wizard living in a magic tower in the middle of the city of Nicodranas, where he owns the district.
• Arc Villain:
  • The Starter Villain that the party goes up against in Episodes 1-3 is an animalistic demon spreading a zombie plague for some sinister purpose.
  • A pack of gnolls, along with a human priest in a gnoll costume and a giant mother manticore, terrorize the village of Alfield in Episodes 5-7.
  • In a weird way, the city of Zadash itself becomes one during the group's stay within it. The threats the group faces are all related to The Empire, and many of the jobs they take involve mistakes or actions The Empire has done. By the time they leave the city, the group has had to deal with corrupt politicians, undead scientists, and other problems The Empire created or allowed to happen. Just about the only thing the group faces that isn't a problem caused by The Empire is their own internal disputes.
  • The Iron Shepherds, a gang of slavers, are the single focus of the Mighty Nein's plans from Episodes 25 to 29. Each episode features the Nein tracking the Shepherds, taking stock of their manpower, and coming up with plans to ambush and defeat them, both to free their kidnapped friends and avenge the murdered Mollymauk. They were planned to feature in an extended arc, but much to the DM's consternation, their demonic leader Lorenzo got incinerated by the party in Episode 29.
  • Although the party initially is ostensibly united in cause with them in investigating Uk'otoa, Avantika and the crew of the Squall Eater end up being this for the first part of the party's travels through the Menagerie coast, as the party endeavors to get out from under her thumb and take control of the Uk'otoa situation into their own hands. After visiting a Yuan-Ti infested temple of Uk'otoa, the party ends up turning against her in the next port at Darktow and (messily) exposing her to the Plank King, leading to the party being banished from the Revelry and Avantika being executed.
  • Obann, the Master of Wills, is responsible for the incursion of fiends that the Nein investigate from episodes 52 to 63. After their first direct encounter with him ends in their defeat, the Nein spend until episode 87 traveling the continent attempting to thwart Obann's attempts to release stronger fiends and discover his connection to their friend Yasha.
  • For the Rumblecusp arc, Vokodo, the supposed volcano god (actually an aberrant morkoth that broke into the Prime Material Plane and has been brainwashing travelers into worshipping it) is the primary antagonist. Once he is defeated and Travelercon begins, the closest thing to an antagonist is the Traveler himself.
  • The Eiselcross arc features a final campaign boss who is none other than Lucien, the Nonagon, and the previous personality of Mollymauk Tealeaf. Over time they unravel a vast, interplanar conspiracy masterminded by the living city of Cognouza, a massive, hungering aberration in the Astral Sea led by the mysterious "Eyes of Nine."
• Arc Number: Nine has become one for the whole campaign; starting as a joke when the cast began rolling a disproportionate number of nines, it became an increasingly creepy coincidence as major parts of the story centered around the number nine - including the three eyes each on the three demigods in the Uko'toa arc, the ninth school of magic being dunamancy, and finally the Eyes of Nine being the final boss of the campaign.
  • The group have even taken to calling themselves The Mighty Nein, even though there are only seven of them (six when Yasha is elsewhere). At the end of the campaign the group name is finally fulfilled, with Essek and the revived Molly filling the final two of nine.
  • Interestingly, one of Molly's former names turns out to be "Nonagon"; i.e., a nine-sided polygon. Matt has confirmed on Twitter that he came up with the name Nonagon before nine became the group's arc number.
• Arc Words: "Leave every place better than how you found it." Adopted as a group philosophy after Molly's death and used as a core motivation for eventually ending the war between the Dwendalian Empire and the Kryn Dynasty.

• Aristocrats Are Evil: A frequent occurrence, in the Empire at least. The Nein have had to go up against corrupt nobles several times, and even several of the main characters' backstory villains are aristocrats - namely the Cerberus Assembly, who tortured and brainwashed Caleb, and Lord Sharpe, who tried to have Jester put to death for playing a prank on him.
• Armor-Piercing Question: It's known to happen. One of the most notable examples is between Yasha and Caleb, even with nothing explicit being said.
  Yasha: Do you love her?
  Caleb: Who?
  Yasha: I don't need to tell you who.
• Arrested for Heroism: The first few episodes of the campaign follow the party as they are unwillingly thrust together to clear their names after attending a circus where a zombie incursion broke out; after defeating the zombies and saving the town, they are immediately arrested under suspicion of having created them.
• Artificial Human: Halas, the long-lost archmage, has an extradimensional wizard tower that is absolutely full of flesh golems and mutated clones. It turns out he was trying to grow an infinite supply of clone bodies to inhabit after he died (apparently lichdom was 'too messy'). Once he accidentally trapped himself in a Soul Jar while perfecting the process, the clones were given the run of the place for 800 years.
• Assassination Attempt: The Nein participate in one when they attempt to take down the corrupt High-Richter (that is, head of the police) of Zadash. That is, it wasn't supposed to be an assassination; they just meant to discredit her... but when she caught them snooping through her house for incriminating paperwork, it's Fireball time.
• Ass Shove:
  • An ongoing joke with Fjord. After the group finds a mysterious crystal orb being worshipped by swamp merrow, Fjord is inexplicably drawn to it - it reminds him heavily of the giant eyes he sees in his warlock dreams, and when he goes near it he hears the voice of his patron in his head. However, when he touches it, he goes into a trance state and shoves the crystal into his chest with seemingly no resistance - the crystal just disappears into his body. The Nein have never stopped teasing him about "shoving balls into himself."
  • The joke was written into the annals of history (or anals, as the case may be) when the Mighty Nein 'liberated' the pirate vessel the "Squalleater" from its original owners, and, with Captain Fjord in reluctant tow, triumphantly renamed it... the "Balleater". 50-some-odd episodes later, they attend the a historic meeting between the Empire and the Dynasty, a moment that will go down in history, as honored guests aboard the esteemed... Balleater.
• Astral Finale: While most of the campaign takes place on the continent of Wildemount, the final arc takes the Mighty Nein to the Astral Plane to prevent the Tombtakers from bringing the living city of Cognouza back to Exandria.
• Ate It All: After the Nein accidentally kidnap a crew of very ordinary sailors and take them to a terrifying pirate island where they're all nearly killed - traumatizing them in the process - they decide to try to make it up to them by sending them home with plenty of gold and a very expensive, rare bottle of mead from a different island. That is, that was the plan... until Nott drank the whole bottle in one go.
• The Atoner: Caleb has spent most of his adult life trying to atone for murdering his parents under brainwashing. Eventually he's able to make peace with just doing as much good in the world as he can, but his secret mad dream was always to somehow turn back time and magically reverse his fall from grace.
  • Yasha is also a former villain seeking redemption, although she doesn't know it at first. It turns out she was part of an evil cult trying to raise an ancient god, and slaughtered countless people in the process. Her journey consists of trying to reverse her quite literal 'fall from grace,' regaining her aasimar wings and finding her place in the world.
• Atop a Mountain of Corpses: Yasha has several scenes like this, usually in dream sequences - hearkening back to her past as the Orphanmaker. One particularly chilling example has her, in a dream, wake up in a field of bodies - only to realize they all have the faces of her friends.
• Attack the Injury: This is a feature of Fjord and Beau's Vitriolic Best Buds relationship, most notably when Fjord slapped Beau's brand-new tattoo.
• Back from the Dead: Episode 111 drops the bombshell that Molly has been resurrected by the Tomb Takers, reverting him to his original 'Lucien' personality. The Nein are initially hopeful about the news, but it's quickly revealed that Lucien is not only a completely different person from Molly, but a BBEG of epic proportions.
• Backstory Horror: Nott is a strange but clever little goblin, quirky and full of endearing habits like an aversion to water (and bathing), rapid-fire mood swings, kleptomania, and a love of cheap whiskey. For the first 40 or so episodes she's mostly comic relief, a few mentions of a long-lost love aside. Then we find out that she was once an ordinary halfling wife and mother who sacrificed herself to save her husband and baby son from being eaten by goblins. As punishment for killing the goblin chief, she was drowned and transformed into what she hated most... a goblin. Just like that, every one of the meaningless but funny quirks she's always had take on a chilling cast.
• Back-to-Back Badasses: Yasha and Beau, the party's two main tanks, frequently end up in this situation.
• Badass Arm-Fold: Beau is a master of folding her arms in just such a way as to look casual while actually pushing up her biceps to look more impressve. It's unknown whether she passed on the knowledge, but Fjord starts doing it later on.

• Badass Bureaucrat: Dairon, Beau's mentor, is an seasoned Expositor for the Cobalt Soul. It's her job not only to serve as a spy in enemy lands, but also to root out the corruption in the Empire itself. While she is definitely a badass on the battlefield, some of her most impressive moments have been in the library.

• Badass Family: The Clays, Caduceus' family, definitely count. They have been the caretakers of a cemetery in the deadly, cursed forest of the Savalirwood for generations, and as a result all of them can hold their own against ghosts, zombies, bandits and the like - from elderly Aunt Corrin all the way down to cheerful little Clarabelle.
• Badass in Distress: Yasha ends up in this position far too often for anyone's comfort. The most notable example was her month under the mind control of Obann, a demonic cult leader, where she was forced to murder innocents while her completely aware mind watched, but it's become almost a runnng gag at his point that Yasha is charmed or possessed Once an Episode.
  • Another notable example for the same character: when Jester, Fjord, and Yasha are kidnapped by the Iron Shepherds, it is Yasha who is first in line to be 'broken' by them. When the Nein find her, she is a mess - and she doesn't even know her best friend is dead yet.
• Badass Longcoat: Beau and Caleb both wear one. Later on Fjord joins in on the act, pairing it with a truly ridiculous tricorn 'captain's hat'.
• Bad Boss: Vess DeRogna, the Cerberus Assembly's Archmage of Antiquity, is this to the talented arcane craftspeople and scholars she oversees. When she was working with Nott's husband Yeza to synthesize a potion of luck from the Empire's stolen Beacon and learn more about dunamancy, she apparently forced him to work almost around the clock and was deeply abusive—to the degree that when Nott magically disguises herself as Vess, he has a violent reaction of terror. Later on, after the party's near-disastrous escape through the elemental plane of fire and the Archmage's Bane, Yeza is quick to call out Vess's actions—and those of the whole Cerberus Assembly—as being far more to blame for Luc's brief death and the Mighty Nein being on the run than a guilt-ridden Veth.
  • When the Nein mention offhandedly to Vess that they're waiting on some enchanted items from Pumat Sol before they can head off to Eiselcross with her, they're called to Pumat's shop almost a week early to pick up their commissions. They find him cowering next to a smug Vess, exhausted, apparently not having slept in days, and nearly in tears. But their stuff is done...
• The Bad Guys Are Cops: Given that the Dwendalian Empire is extremely corrupt, antagonistic Crownsguard show up quite frequently - in fact, they're more the rule than the exception. One particularly notable one was an unnamed guard who laughed Caleb out of the rich district in town, and, when he tried to send his familiar in instead...punted the poor cat back to the Feywild.
• Bad Habits: Jester has more than once pranked major temples in the name of the Traveler - including putting a mustache on the Raven Queen, painting the Allhammer's anvil with pink hearts, and - most infamously - attempting to infiltrate the temple of the Platinum Dragon in the guise of its religious head, an elderly dragonborn priest. Needless to say, it does not go well, and she just barely escapes before being caught and tried as a worshipper of Tiamat!
• Bad Impressionists: When the party suggests that Caleb disguise his Zemnian accent to fit in better in Xhorhas, they discover that Caleb is really, really bad at accents.
  Nott: Sound like Fjord!
  Caleb: Eldritch... Bleeaaaaaeeeiist.
  Nott: Nope! There are no 'e's in that word!
  Fjord: I hope I don't sound like that....
• Bad Liar: Caduceus, befitting his role as a hermit priest, never lies. It's not necessarily that he sees lying as immoral - more that he thinks honesty ultimately gets one further in life than being untrustworthy. This causes him to clash multiple times with the rest of the Nein, whose instincts tend to be 'lie first, come clean later.' However, after seeing a cursed, undead forest - eerily similar to the curse on his homeland his family nearly died trying to break - living completely underground in an ancient ruin filled with twisted monsters, he was shaken up enough to attempt lying to an NPC about what they found. As if to prove his usual philosophy right, the NPC immediately saw through his lie and nearly ruined their mission as a result.
• Bad People Abuse Animals: Someone deliberately targeting Frumpkin is generally a good signal that they're a villain. This includes the unnamed guard in Zadash who kicked him just for fun as well as more serious antagonists like Lorenzo. In addition, when the Nein are gathering intel on the corrupt High-Richter Prucine, one of the things they discover is that in addition to taking bribes and being rude to tieflings, she also hates puppies.
• Bad Powers, Bad People: The villains of the final arc of the campaign, the Tomb Takers, use a classically 'evil' form of magic - hemocraft, or blood magic..
• Bad Powers, Good People: Fjord, being a warlock, has powers that while not necessarily inherently evil, are cast with flavor that makes it very clear they come from an evil source. Overcoming the temptation to give into that evil forms the backbone of his arc. When he eventually ditches his patron and becomes a paladin, his powers change appearance and no longer seem obviously dark, instead being themed around vines and greenery.
  • Mollymauk Tealeaf uses blood magic to fuel his powers, but aside from being a con man and self-described asshole, he's a fairly decent individual.
• Bait-and-Switch: Episode 2 features one. The group goes back to the circus to figure out what caused the zombie attack from the first episode, namely by checking in with the performers. Initially the group, namely Nott and Jester, believe that one of the twin girls in the circus are the cause due to their aloof attitude. Then it turns out to be none other than the fiend Kylre.
• Bait-and-Switch Boss:
  • The party walks through the snowy wilderness south of Uthodurn and appears to run into a random encounter with two giant wolves, only for a giant ice worm (aka a remorrhaz) to spring from the ground and devour one of the wolves mid-pounce. The other wolf flees and the party has to fight the remorrhaz instead.
  • As the party travels to the central volcano of Rumblecusp, they see a half-elf half-spider creature that seems to be raring to fight them, only for a Tyrannosaurus rex to swoop in, kill the monster, and scare off the party.
• Bald of Authority: Dairon, Beau's teacher at the Cobalt Soul and a high-ranking Expositor.
• Banishing Ritual: This is how the Nein defeat the evil volcano 'god' Vokodo, who has held an entire village of people captive by erasing their memories, and almost did the same to the Nein. Unfortunately, because Vokodo is able to reflect magical effects, they temporarily banish Caduceus and Beau instead. That said, the party's need for funds ends up winning out, so they bring the treasure-covered morkoth back before the banishment spell would be permanent, and end up outright killing the creature with Disintegrate.
• Barbarian Tribe: Yasha grew up in one of these. She left after she disobeyed her tribe's law of arranged marriages, and her chosen wife was executed as a result.
• Bar Brawl: Growing up as a rebellious teenager in a small town, this is how Beau learned to fight. Since then, she has trained heavily with the Cobalt Soul and learned a more disciplined fighting style. But when under stress, she often reverts to old habits. Case in point: when fighting Lucien in his ascended form in the city of Cognouza, her first instinct was to break his thumb.
• Battle Couple: Yasha and Beau are the epitome of this. They love to show off and flirt during battle - to the frustration of their enemies. It's to the degree that when Beau is given the opportunity to use high-level magic to create the perfect date, she includes a sequence where they have to fight illusory ninjas together.
• Battle in the Rain: As he is a god of storms and battle, this is generally how Yasha communicates with the Stormlord. Most examples are within her prophetic dreams, but there are some particularly stand-out examples.
  • When the Nein are sailing on the Lucidian Ocean after stealing a ship, they encounter a bad storm soon out of the gate. While everyone else is struggling to keep the ship upright, a strange winged creature made entirely of lightning attacks Yasha - accompanied by the Stormlord's voice telling her to protect what must be protected. She is eventually able to defeat it (though she falls off the ship's mast and nearly dies in the attempt)... and the storm quickly stops.
  • Much later, after Yasha is abducted and magically mind-controlled by the fiendish cult she was once part of, the Nein meet her again in the Chantry of the Dawn, the main temple to the Dawnfather in Rexxentrum. It's storming heavily when they arrive, and at first the Nein are fighting Yasha in the rain. But when Caduceus is able to dispel the mind control, suddenly there is a massive flash of lightning and all the stained-glass windows in the temple shatter at once. At this point Yasha, now free of her bonds and pissed at the people who did this to her, begins the real battle in the rain.
  • In the final arc of the campaign, Yasha is given the Holy Avenger, a sword that can only be wielded by a paladin, by its owner Kima. Because she is a zealot barbarian, Matt lets her attune to it, but in order to do so she must prove herself as a champion of a Stormlord. A storm rolls over the Blooming Grove as the Nein are preparing to head north, and Yasha falls asleep in the garden, clutching the sword. The Stormlord comes to her in the resulting dream and commands her to prove herself. In the ensuing fight against a cluster of storm elementals, an elemental lands a killing blow on her - and, because of her Rage Beyond Death Ability, she continues to fight.
  • The most badass moment in that battle actually happens after she defeats the elementals. After laying waste to them all, she flies up through the storm, trying to reach a sliver of light that represents her triumph over the darkness. But now that she's no longer fighting, her rage is soon to drop - and when her rage drops, she'll die. Struggling to fly faster through the rain, feeling the divine strength that is keeping her airborne begin to fade, she flies into a lightning bolt, dealing enough damage to keep her rage up.
• Bawdy Song: After The Reveal that Jester's mother is the High-Class Call Girl "The Ruby of the Sea", one of the first few questions they ask her is "is she what that song is about?" And then Laura has to make up the first line...
  Jester: The Ruby of the Sea is the best lay ever!
• Beard of Barbarism: Dagen Underthorn, a rugged Arctic ranger used to surviving in freezing temperatures off wolf jerky and whiskey, has a wild one usually tipped with frost.
• Beard of Evil: Trent Ikithon combines this with Wizard Beard; his long, thin, Merlin-like grey beard might make him look like a wise old sage if you didn't know better. In reality, though, he's a cruel archmage and propagandist who tortures and brainwashes young adolescents into becoming superpowered assassins.
• Beard of Sorrow: Caleb starts the campaign with one, having spent the past few years in a deep depression. As he comes out his shell he begins shaving it, then ends up with a much neater and better-trimmed beard by the end.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Zigzagged trope with Nott. She is turned back into her halfling form Veth, which is what she wanted, but there are both mechanical and narrative downsides. Halflings have a boost to Charisma but don't get one to Constitution, so Veth's Constitution score goes down by one, reducing her hit points by 11. She is also slower now, doesn't have darkvision, and can no longer use Fury of the Small. In addition, becoming Veth again means that she feels redoubled pressure to stop adventuring and go home to her family. However, in the end she concludes that she's much happier this way.
• Because Destiny Says So: This is Caduceus' M.O. His main mission is to serve the Wildmother and her divine plan, no matter what danger it might lead him into. As a result he quickly becomes The Heart and wise sage/group therapist of the Mighty Nein, comforting them that whatever path they are on is the right one. In the campaign wrap-up, Taliesin explains that Caduceus operates like the world is a D&D game.
• Bedlam House: While we never see anything explicit (as the Nein never visit the actual patient rooms), the Vergessen Sanatorium is heavily implied to be this. Just seeing Caleb's reaction when they enter the grounds - reverting to shell-shocked silence and scratching compulsively at his arms - would be enough to give one pause, but when the Nein break into the facility to steal anti-scrying necklaces, they see a variety of what can only be described as torture implements. The one time we do get a glimpse of the in-use part of the facility is in Caleb's magical tower, where he has created a replica of his room there. It's a dismal cell with restraining straps on the bed.
• Being Tortured Makes You Evil: The Vollstrucker or "Scourgers", a group of Empire mage-assassins with super-soldier qualities, are trained by being 'broken' as young adolescents. As a result, they are completely without mercy. However, there are exceptions: Caleb was once a Vollstrucker-in-training, and escaped his brainwashing before it was complete. Much later, we discover that Caleb's old friends Astrid and Eadwulf are much less blindly loyal than they act. Astrid in particular is just waiting for her chance to murder her "teacher."
• Being Watched: While on the creepy island of Rumblecusp, where anyone who stays too long has their memory wiped, our heroes have a constant feeling of being watched by some unknown entity. It eventually turns out the watcher is Vokodo, the mutated Morkoth who rules the island and has been trapping people there for decades.
• Belief Makes You Stupid: The Traveler seems to have this opinion, consistently mocking the gods and their followers - to the point of dismissing Caduceus and Fjord]outright as useless. This backfires on him spectacularly when he tries to fool his followers into thinking he's the Moonweaver... and she decides she doesn't like that.
• Beneath the Earth: The Nein encounter an underground society of kobolds as well as a massive fire giant citadel when travelling through a massive worm tunnel on their way to Xhorhas.
• Berserk Button: Caduceus is normally the gentlest soul one could find, to the degree that the Nein (and even the cast) initially suspected he must be hiding a Dark Secret under his 'zen' exterior. He's not, but it turns out he's has no patience for laziness - the only time we've ever seen him legitimately snap at someone is when a hired guide refuses to help during a fight. (The fact that said guide was partially undead did not help his case).
  • Also, don't mess with his family. This definitely includes the Mighty Nein; Caduceus and Jester flipped their roles as healer and blaster was when Fjord was briefly killed by agents of Uk'otoa. Cue a fifth-level Blight.
  • The undead in general would count as a Berserk Button for Caduceus. While he's generally understanding of all kinds of morally ambiguous things - from Jester defacing temples to Fjord having a dark pact with an eldritch demigod - the undead consistently rattle him, and are one of the few things he can't empathize with. Given that he spent most of his life defending his home from a cursed, haunted, blighted forest, and that his job is essentially to consecrate the holy cycle of life and death, it's understandable that he gets skeeved.
  • Caduceus may be understanding of Jester's defacing of temples, but he threatens Astrid and Eadwulf into helping clean up the temple they burned with a booming voice and deep black pit eyes.
  The Matron has special destinations for people who burn temples. So why don't you put your back into this?
• Beware the Quiet Ones: It's easy for the Nein's enemies (and even their allies) to dismiss the party's shy, socially awkward, and initially ragged-looking wizard as not much of a threat. In fact, he's the group's Glass Cannon who can (and has) easily wiped out whole city blocks with a single spell, as well as a former child assassin who once did the dirty work for the immensely powerful Cerberus Assembly.
• Big Friendly Dog: Nugget, Jester's pet blink dog, definitely counts - as blink dogs are very big. His favorite trick is to jump up on someone, poof, and then knock them over at the full speed of teleport.
• Bilingual Bonus: Berleben is a swamp town that looks miserable but is still functional. Its name means "survive/survival" in German, the real-world analogue of Zemnian.
  • Caleb's other name, Bren, is German/Zemnian for "burn." Fitting, given his backstory.
  • The capital of the Empire, Rexxentrum, is a somewhat mangled version of the Latin for "royal center," or the German derivative "Reichszentrum" (empire center).
  • Vergesson Sanitarium was named after Lord Symon Vergesson in-universe, but is probably derived from the German "vergessen" (to forget). Caleb spent 11 years there with fake memories implanted in him, and escaped after a fellow patient ^note a disciple of the Archeart healed him and made him remember the truth. Among its many other uses, the Sanitarium is also a place to put people who are a danger to themselves and others, who cannot be allowed to leave and will/should be forgotten.
• Bitch Slap: Beau's dad gave a crushing one as part of her backstory. Having bribed a Cobalt Soul monk to literally kidnap her in the night and take her to the Archive, her last memory of home was him slapping her across the face as she was dragged out. No wonder she's rough around the edges.
• Bizarre Taste in Food: Yasha's favorite treats include roasted spider legs (complete with venom) and crushed roaches spread on pancakes. Apparently it's a delicacy in Xhorhas.
• Bleak Border Base: The fortified village of Bazzoxan in the Kryn Dynasty is built around an ancient demonic temple called Betrayers' Rise, and has spent the last 40 years in a stalemate battling a demonic incursion from within the temple, keeping the demons from leaving and swarming the rest of the Dynasty.
• Blow You Away: While in Nicodranas, Caduceus gets Beau a fan which allows her to create a massive gust of wind several times a day. It comes in handy while on the high seas.
• Bluff the Eavesdropper: When Fjord gains the ability to see invisible things (through his new paladin sword and Vestige of Divergence the Star Razor), he realizes that the Nein are regularly spied on through magic scrying orbs in their house in Xhorhas, which initially freaks him out and causes the Nein to try and feed the mysterious watcher false information - through a definitely not suspicious conga line of contradictory claims, fake cocktail shakers, and random spell blasts at the walls. (Over time they get scried on enough that they learn to do this better, but the first time is notable for just how bad it was).
• Boarding School of Horrors: Played with with the Cobalt Soul; being a monastery, the curriculum for young initiates is very strict, involving (according to Beau, who admittedly is an Unreliable Narrator) a lot of punching walls and balancing books on your head. It also played the role of a reform school in Beau's backstory, after her father bribed a corrupt monk to literally kidnap her in the dead of night and bring her there. However, the overal Cobalt Soul organization is quite benevolent, however strict they may be to their initiates, and Beau's superiors were shocked and horrified to find out she had been brought there against her will.
• Bodyguarding a Badass: The Mighty Nein are hired to act as bodyguards for the Archmage and Action Politician Vess De Rogna while she goes dungeon delving in the incredibly deadly underground ruins that exist beneath the already-dangerous Arctic region of Eiselcross. Reasoning that she's quite possibly more powerful than they are, they decide to be somewhat laissez-faire about actually guarding her - which backfires on them when she is murdered right under their noses, turning the bodyguarding mission into a desperate race to catch the killer before anyone finds out that she's dead.
• Bookworm: Caleb's first mission in every town they visit is to find the library, and he has been known to literally tear up when presented with books. He was even willing to spill his entire Dark and Troubled Past to Beau in exchange for her taking him to the Zadash Archive.
• Boomerang Bigot: Played for Drama with Nott. Despite being a goblin herself, she despises other goblins, describing them as "all awful" and insisting that they should be killed on sight. She herself hates being a goblin, having heavily implied that she was abused by her clan and saying outright that her only friend while living with her clan was a halfling man from the neighboring town. Eventually it turns out that Nott was originally a halfling woman cursed with a goblin body after the goblins kidnapped her family, making this even more tragic.
  Jester: Was it hard, fighting other goblins?
  Nott: It was very satisfying.
• Born as an Adult: While Molly claims to have no regrets about mysteriously waking up in a grave with no memory of his life, he does (under the influence of drugs) express wonder at the realization that he never had a childhood.
• Boxed Crook: The Nein end up in this situation after accidentally assassinating the High-Richter of Zadash. Approaching the Gentleman, a mysterious and deeply shady smuggler who runs a hidden mob bar underground and controls a network of dangerous underground rivers, he offers them An Offer You Can't Refuse: if they agree to work for him, he will throw the law off their scent by feeding them some false culprits. If they don't, he will have his underlings turn them in for the reward, and they will all most likely be executed. They decide that working for him doesn't sound so bad.
• Break the Cutie: It seems as though the campaign as a whole is a slow burn of this to Jester. Starting out as an incredibly sheltered and naive young woman, having been essentially locked in her room most of her life, not allowed to go outside due to a combination of her mother's severe agoraphobia and the potential scandal of the Ruby of the Sea having a daughter, much of her arc is about being exposed to the world for the first time - including its darker elements. Over the course of the campaign, she manages to maintain her natural kindness and compassion, but her initially bubbly personality sobers into a more mature, jaded outlook.
• Breather Episode:
  • Episode 14 serves as one after the intense episodes 12 and 13, where the party only narrowly escaped being arrested or worse. It's a shorter episode (due to Laura being absent and Matt not wanting to continue the story too much without her), has no combat and mostly focuses on Mollymauk and his backstory, with the most intense event being a card game.
  • Episode 17 plays this much straighter, taking place after the Mighty Nein has successfully accomplished a quite difficult task for the Gentleman, who has cleared their names of suspicion for murdering the High Richter in return. The episode consists entirely of the group having fun and enjoying the Harvest Close Festival of Zadash.
  • Episode 31 is another one. After the intensity of the last arc where Jester, Fjord, and Yasha were kidnapped by slavers and Molly died, an episode almost entirely devoted to what they do during the two weeks of downtime is a great relief.
• Brick Joke: At the beginning of Episode 6, an NPC instructs Jester to tell the gnolls, which had recently attacked the man's village, that "Thaddeus Candleglow says hi", to which Jester eagerly agrees. At the very end of the next episode, long after the party had dealt with the gnoll-infested mines, Jester opens up the jar containing the gnolls' ears they were to get a reward for and relays that exact message.
  • An even longer one has Sam make a joke about Beau's name, "Henry. David. Thoreauregard", which Marisha remarks is "interesting". Many episodes later, it's revealed her father is named Thoreau.
  • One that lasted somehow even longer had Marisha remark in Episode 8 that eventually they will "fight gods" with Pumat 500 hours later. In Episode 85, around 310 hours later, Pumat and the Nein go off to stop the unbinding of an ancient god.
  • Throughout the early episodes, Nott uses the aliases "Veth," "Bren," and "Otto." It's eventually revealed that her real name is Veth Brenatto.
  • When Nott briefly introduces herself as "Bren," Caleb (and therefore Liam) immediately looks freaked out and stares at her for a good five minutes. In the same episode as the above reveal, we discover that Bren is Caleb's real name.
  • The Mighty Nein picked their group's name as a joke and never had nine full members at the same time to suit the pun, causing confusion among various NPCs. Until the Aeor arc, where Essek Thelyss and a revived Mollymauk Tealeaf finally make up the numbers as they Plane Shift back to Exandria.
• Brief Accent Imitation: It has become a bit of a Running Gag for the party to make Caleb try to imitate them. He is very bad at this, to everyone's amusement.
• Bringing Back Proof: When the party first arrive in Alfield, they find the town besieged by gnolls and meet Watchmaster Bryce Feelid, who requests their aid in fighting off the invaders and offers a generous bounty of 50 gold per gnoll ear.
• Bruiser with a Soft Center: Yasha is a hulking barbarian from the wastes of Xhorhas with No Social Skills - not to mention an almost-literal angel of death, being a fallen aasimar. However, she collects flowers in a book for her dead wife, loves baking (especially pancakes) and is nearly brought to tears when Jester paints a mural on her bedroom wall.
• Bound and Gagged: Happens to Fjord, Yasha, and Jester when they are kidnapped at the end of episode 25.
• Call a Rabbit a "Smeerp": Caleb's use of what in our world is clearly German is instead referred to as "Zemnian," the main language of the Dwendalian Empire.
• Call-Back: In Episode 115, just like Vox Machina and the Sun Tree, the Nein comes across violently murdered corpses that resemble the party.
• Calling Your Attacks: Based on in-character discussion, it is considered canon that Fjord actually yells "Eldritch Blast" when using the spell of the same name. Somewhat justified in that Fjord doesn't really understand how magic works, having been gifted his somewhat suddenly, and seems to believe that saying the name of the spell is part of casting it.
• Cast Full of Gay: Downplayed, but still present. Over half the main Player characters are some variety of LGBTQ+,^note Beau and Yasha are both lesbians, Molly is bisexual and genderfluid, Caleb is bisexual, and Caduceus is asexual. a number of the guest player characters are queer,^note Both Keg and Reani are bisexual, and Calianna has no official orientation but was confirmed by her actor Mark Hulmes to have 'a preference for women'. and a number of nonplayer characters are as well, such as the genderfluid Bryce and husbands Horace and Dolan. There are even queer gods in Exandria - the Archeart uses they/them pronouns, and the Wildmother and the Lawbearer (both of them women) have a 'tempestuous romance'.
• Cats Are Magic: The fairy tale Caleb reads Jester in episode 115, Der Katzenprinz,^note Zemnian for 'The Cat Prince'. is about a young ill boy who is given the ability to dance by the titular character.
• Cat Scare: Caleb intentionally has Frumpkin give Beau and Fjord one of these in Episode 9, after they sneak into the secret meeting at The Leaky Tap.
• Characterization Marches On: Interestingly enough, applied to an empire. The Tal'dorei Campaign Setting book describes the Dwendalian Empire as outlawing all religion. In Campaign 2 proper, the Empire allows worship of certain "approved deities" (the Lawbearer, Platinum Dragon, Raven Queen, Dawnfather, Allhammer and Knowing Mistress), though temples are state-sponsored and state-run. It's later mentioned, when Beau researches the topic, that the past king responsible for this system originally did intend to ban all religions, but the backlash was too strong.
• Chekhov's Gag:
  • In Episode 30, Jester shows off her Cloak of Shadow Channel Divinity, which only lasts 6 seconds, to Nott. Nott says that maybe next time she uses it, it will have a purpose. Come the next episode, it is instrumental in letting Jester get away from Crownsguard.
  • It's something of a recurring joke in early episodes that Molly is a god. Almost a hundred episodes later, it's revealed that he may actually be one, or at least something close to one.
  • The sovereign glue. Bought from a really creepy lady (hinted to be a hag) who also sold Yasha her bone harp, it was promised to be the source of some amazing pranks. It seemed to have fulfilled its purpose when Nott used it at Travelercon to permanently glue a dick statue to a rude woman's hand. However, the sovereign glue was not done with them, nor they with the sovereign glue - in one of the very last episodes, it was instrumental in the defeat of Trent Ikithon, as they permanently affixed Halas' anti-magic collar onto his neck and glued his hands together, forcing him to spend the rest of his life mute and unable to cast spells, being force-fed and sponge-bathed in a tiny cell.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • In Episode 2, Caleb finds a book on fiends in the local bookstore. This doesn't seem important, until Jester's Detect Evil spell reveals that the first Arc Villain is a Fiend. Knowing this, Caleb goes back to buy the book, and it does indeed reveal exactly what they're up against.
  • The venom troll in Labenda Swamp's regeneration was stopped by fire and acid - Fjord remembering this fact in episode 82 allows the Nein to finally put down the strange Halas clone.
  • The Happy Fun Ball. Brought in by guest character Twiggy, it initially seemed to be a vehicle for a one-off adventure, and the Nein passed it off to Yussa as soon as they could. The Heirloom Sphere, which is what it's actually called, turns out to house a lot more useful things — the Permaheart, which, when destroyed, allows the Nein to actually defeat the Laughing Hand; the notes that Caleb later uses to create a permanent body modification spell for Nott/Veth, and the Collar of Silence that becomes vital in defeating Trent Ikithon. It comes in handy again in a more mundane way when the Nein hide three of their number inside the sphere to cheat the creature limit for the Plane Shift spell.
  • The Dust of Deliciousness. Initially just a gag purchase at Pumat’s, it becomes key to breaking the curse on Nott when Jester uses it on Isharnai, 60 episodes later!
• Clear My Name: The first story arc centers around this, as Molly and Yasha's circus is accused of bringing a zombie plague (which unknown to Molly and Yasha, they actually did) and the rest of the party is roped in as collaborators because they happened to be in the vicinity. Figuring out the truth is made even more difficult by the fact that they are all under house arrest in their inn - and sneaking out to investigate only makes them look more guilty.
• Comes Great Responsibility: One episode is actually named "With Great Power..." It's about the archfey Artagan from campaign 1, who's somehow taken a level in godhood by accident.
• Continuity Nod:
  • In Episode 10, the party, while down in the sewers, finds a dead sailor whose body is covered in tattoos of various ships. After Fjord has a look to see whether he recognizes any of the vessels, Ashley asks if the Broken Howl (the ship her previous character Pike sailed on for a time) is on there. Matt rolls for it and confirms that it is.
    Yasha: That looks like a piece of shit ship.
  • In Episode 13, the party visits The Invulnerable Vagrant again and finds Pumat Sol reading a book that he reveals to be "The Daring Tales and Tribulations of Sir Taryon Darrington".
  • In Episode 31, Nott decides to try and disassemble a gun she stole back in Hupperdook to see how it works. Matt mentions the design is the same as the ones made by Percy, and allows Taliesin to take over explaining it since Taliesin played Percy in season one.
  • Episode 72 sees the Mighty Nein examine powdered residuum from Whitestone. We even get a glimpse of the city during a spell Caduceus casts.
  • A major character in the small arc where the Nein must rescue the Archmage Yussa from the Heirloom Sphere is Allura Vysoren.
  • During the Vokodo/Travelercon arc, we meet the leader of the village Vo who turns out to be Keyleth's mother, Vilya, who is suffering from Vokodo-induced amnesia.
• Contrived Coincidence: In Episode 79, the Mighty Nein are racing against Obann, the Laughing Hand, and a mind-controlled Yasha to reach a specific location in the Lotusden Greenwood, with Obann and company having a head start. The Nein Polymorph into giant birds to fly over the forest and gain ground. When the spell ends, the party crash lands within earshot of Obann's camp, despite traveling over a forest that is at leat a hundred miles wide.
• Cool vs. Awesome: Episode 102 - the party encounters a draegloth, a drow-demon hybrid that's exactly as nightmarish as it sounds. Then it's suddenly chewed up and eaten by the real threat to the party... a Tyrannosaurus rex.
• Corruption of a Minor: Jester went through a (relatively) harmless version of this, as her "imaginary" friend the Traveler was actually a real, older, and very dangerous individual (specifically an archfey) that snuck into her room unseen and initially told her lies for his own amusement, giving her magical powers, teaching her to play potentially dangerous pranks on powerful individuals, and even grooming her into a cult leader, before coming to genuinely care about her and changing his ways. It's mostly Played for Laughs, but it's still quite uncomfortable, as it could have been a lot worse had The Traveler not changed for the better over the years.
• Court Mage:
  • The Cerberus Assembly serves as a collection of these as they're among the most powerful mages in the Dwendalian Empire, yet are sworn to the service of the emperor. Each of their highest ranking members holds a distinguished position of authority in the government, and are in charge of several important matters pertaining to running the empire such as conscription of new soldiers and mages, spreading propaganda, education and research, domestic defense, etc..
  • Prominent NPC Essek Thelyss, who proves an invaluable ally to the Nein, is the right-hand mage to the Dynasty's Bright Queen, a post referred to as the "Shadowhand."
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • After several days of an uneasy truce between them, the tension between the Nein and the Tombtakers explodes into violence when the Tomb Takers steal the M9's Bag of Holding. Unfortunately, Lucien quickly nullifies the Nein's magical defenses and deals several extremely damaging blows in the space of a few seconds. The Nein just barely manage to escape with their lives.
  • Thanks to regaining the initiative, the Mighty Nein manage to repay the favor later by blasting the Tombtakers with three fully loaded intuit charges while they're descending into an icy cavern. Three of the Tombtakers are killed in the ambush, making the later battles against Cree and Lucien far more managable.
• Curiosity Is a Crapshoot:
  • True of any D&D campaign, but EXTREMELY prominent where Caleb and Fjord are concerned, due to both of them having a very strong desire for arcane knowledge and power (Fjord being entirely new to arcane magic at all, and having a Wisdom score of 7, doesn't help matters either). The pendulum of curiosity has swung between the Nein gaining new spells or powers and finding very intriguing lore about the world, to being forced at swordpoint to help a cultist pirate crew attempt to unleash a sealed demigod, and quite literally falling onto a dragon's lap with no clear escape route after blindly exploring what seemed to be an ancient wizard's personal pocket dungeon.
  • Hits Beau and Caleb upside the head much later on during their interactions with the Tombtakers. Reading Lucien's cursed tome makes large red eye markings appear on their bodies, like his. The eyes do give them darkvision and the ability to see through illusions as more eyes appear, and some influence over the Cognouza Ward when in the astral plane, but at the cost of a connection to the Somnovem and a penalty to Wisdom saving throws during the final battle.
• Darker and Edgier: While the first campaign wasn't without its dark and tense moments, the Wildemount campaign starts off much more grim than its predecessor. The setting leans more towards Grey-and-Grey Morality (or even Evil Versus Evil) than the Tal'Dorei campaign's more clear-cut heroes and villains, with most enemies of the Dwendallian Empire being just as bad as them, if not worse. The current party are reflections of this, given that they are:
  • A half-orc warlock trying to come to grips with the arcane powers that he has suddenly come to wield (and the implication that they come from an Eldritch Abomination).
  • An itinerant and homeless human wizard who is strongly implied to have PTSD or a similar disorder. He is revealed to have been brainwashed and tortured into being a child soldier by his Evil Teacher, and killed his parents believing they were enemies of the state, after which he snapped and ended up in an asylum for over a decade. When someone managed to restore his mind, it turned out the memories of his parents being traitors were falsely implanted by his mentor.
  • A goblin rogue ousted from her clan and rejected by general society who is actually a halfling forcibly transformed into a goblin as a punishment. She is now trying to empower her wizard friend so he can change her back to her old form and let her return to her family.
  • A shady tiefling carnival barker who seems to suffer from memory loss and uses his own blood to empower himself. He is, in essence, a completely different person due to nearly dying and coming back to life with retrograde amnesia so bad that he has no memory of who he used to be.
  • An abrasive human monk who is on the run from her monastic order and seems to have had a very rough childhood with a ton of unresolved tensions with her father, who sold her to be kidnapped by an order of monks as punishment for her criminal activity.
  • A mysterious aasimar barbarian from a cursed wasteland who was brainwashed into a demonic cult after her wife died.
  • A tiefling cleric of a trickster god who is also the child of a famous courtesan and thus had to be sequestered and kept a secret so as to not jeopardize her mother's career.
  • A firbolg cleric raised in a cemetery in a haunted forest, who makes tea from dead people. He's actually the most well-adjusted of the lot.
• Death of a Child:
  • In episode 7, the infant manticore, courtesy of Nott.
  • A far more frightening example comes in episode 129, when Veth's son Luc is killed by a fire elemental. Luckily, this is D&D, so he gets better.
• Death by Falling Over: In a fight with two two-headed giants, a magically-enlarged Beau trips one of them, only for them to fall face first on sharpened rocks which shatter the front of their skulls.
• Decoy Backstory:
  • Invoked. When asked about his past, Molly likes giving elaborate and entirely fabricated answers, such as telling Fjord he was meant to be a sacrifice for a cult and routinely performing prayer rituals on his swords to back up the story. No one ever believes him, and it's eventually revealed he has no past — he was born two years ago from the remains of the soul of someone called Lucien, having woken up in a grave with ominous eye tattoos, no memories and only able to say the word "empty".
  • Nott the Brave is originally believed to be a very strange goblin who loathes her own clan whom she parted ways with, and desires to be part of society despite their hatred for her. She is actually a halfling called Veth Brenatto who was transformed into a goblin as punishment for killing one when they attacked her family. After escaping the clan, she stuck with Caleb partly in hopes that his magic could undo her curse.
• Digging Yourself Deeper: When coerced into a conversation with two Archmages of the Cerberus Assembly, Yasha almost immediately lets slip that she's from Xhorhas - and upon being questioned further, admits that she's only lived in the Empire for about eight months, unintentionally racking up (false) evidence that she's a spy.
• DIY Dentistry: In Episode 11, the Fjord admits that he "used to do [his] own dental work", filing down his tusks in an attempt to Hide Your Otherness and avoid Half-Breed Discrimination.
• Don't Ask, Just Run:
  • An infamous bit of Mood Whiplash in episode 93 just after Jester Slipping a Mickey on Isharnai and undoing Nott's curse has Jester quickly getting everyone outside the hut to leave, fast.
  • Summed up succinctly with one iconic quote from Caduceus:
    "We're running, it's bad."
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Episode 97. The effect of True Seeing on Beau is apparently no different from a Mushroom Samba.
  Taliesin: I thought you could hold your shit, I'm sorry...
• "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune:
  • The second intro was written by Sam and sung by Laura and Ashley, with backing vocals by Sam and Travis.
  • The D&D Beyond theme song that plays at the break was written and sung by Sam.
• Double-Meaning Title: Episode 21 is named "Stalker in the Swamp", which could refer to both the troll literally stalking the group, and Febron Keyes.
• Dragged Off to Hell: This fate is narrowly avoided by Artagan after he impersonates the Moonweaver. After he angers the gods, a Solar appears to pronounce his judgment, and he is bound in chains and dragged up towards the moon to face judgment in the Feywild.
• Dramatic Irony: Played for Laughs. Viridian tells Beau (played by Marisha Ray) that her family doesn't drink, and Beau responds with a confused/disbelieving "What?" Keyleth (played by Marisha), Viridian/Vilya's real daughter, has gotten drunk multiple times in campaign 1 and proven herself to be a lightweight.
• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • In the first few episodes, Nott had a Cockney accent in addition to her shrill voice. Sam later dropped this in favor of his using his own accent.
  • Near the beginning of the campaign, whenever a party member was about to go through something personal or related to their backstory. Matt would have the rest of the players leave the room while the scene plays out. Eventually this concept was dropped and the players were allowed to stay for private scenes.
• The Empire: The Dwendalian Empire on the continent of Wildemount is the main setting of the campaign. While it does provide protection to the common folk to keep them safe from the numerous hostile forces that lie both within and beyond the empire's borders, it is still a very harsh and authoritarian place to live in. A sizable tithe is exacted from the populace, all places of worship are owned by the government, and the worship of any gods beyond what has been approved of by the empire is forbidden on pain of imprisonment. It gets to the point where there are talks of a revolution being planned to fight back against the empire's authority.
• Evil Versus Evil: The war between the Dwendalian Empire and Xhorhas seems this way initially. On one hand, you have a harsh, authoritarian empire whose upper echelons include some very bad people (such as Trent Ikithon, who experimented on his students and brainwashed them into killing their parents in order to mould them into loyal soldiers) and are researching the Beacons for nefarious purposes. On the other, an empire of Dark Elves inhabiting the old city of the Betrayer Gods who plan to use the Beacons to become immortal. Once the Nein explore the world and get more of a feel for each side's perspective, and eventually more or less side with the Dynasty, it becomes more a case of Grey-and-Grey Morality, with both sides having sympathetic and corrupt elements.
• Evolving Credits: The animation for "Your Turn To Roll" is occasionally updated to reflect developments in the storyline. The most notable change being the NPCs that appear in the tome Matt holds being swapped out for characters who are currently relevant. As of Episode 112, the section with Molly’s gravesite has rainy weather rather than a sunny day, and the coat blows away in the fierce wind, mirroring how the Nein found his unoccupied grave at the end of the previous episode.
• Exact Words: In episode 30, the party finds an apparently-empty bag and immediately suspect it of being a Bag of Holding. They start reaching into it, trying to pull out various items of value, but find nothing. No gems, no jewelry, no gold pieces... but later they discover that there were platinum pieces inside, which no one thought to specifically reach for.
• Failed a Spot Check: The giant toad-like creature the circus had in their company named Kylre? Turns out it was a fiend of all things. The circus group thought it was a lizardfolk the entire time. Upon realizing this, Molly practically facepalms, realizing nobody even remotely thought to check until now. Downplayed in that the ringmaster Gustave did know Kylre's true nature, but kept it a secret from the other carnies.
• Family Theme Naming:
  • Every member of the Clay family has a first name that begins with the letter C (Caduceus, Clarabelle, Cornelius, etc.)
  • More like family theme nicknaming, but Jester's mother Marion, known by most as the Ruby of the Sea, refers to her daughter lovingly as "The Little Sapphire."
• Fancy Camping: Caleb becomes powerful enough in Act 5 to conjure up Widogast's Nascent Nein-Sided Tower, a temporary Pocket Dimension for the party to rest safely while traveling. It takes the form of a sumptuously decorated Mage Tower, complete with banquet dinner.
• Fantastic Racism:
  • Due to the war with the Empire, humans are not welcome in Xhorhas. At one point, a local the Nein hire as a guide refuses to ride on the same mount as Caleb and Beau.
  • For their part, the Empire feels much the same way about drow, orcs, bugbears, goblins, and the other ordinary residents of Xhorhas.
  • Downplayed with halflings in Xhorhas. Nott's husband Yeza, a halfling man, is seen as an object of great curiosity in Rosohna and frequently remarked on, but is not treated with the same hostility as the humans.
• Fantastic Slurs: "Cricks", the Dwendalian Empire's derogatory term for the drow of Xhorhas. Notably, characters who grew up in the Empire (Nott and Beau) say the word quite liberally, while those from outside its borders (Jester) are far more uncomfortable with its use.
• Fighting Your Friend:
  • Beau and Jester do this for fun at the Gentleman's club in Zadash. Jester gets laid out.
  • A much more serious example happens later in the campaign when Yasha gets Brainwashed and Crazy by Obann.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing: The wind picks up around Viridian and her hands dig into the rock around her right before The Reveal that she is Vilya of the Air Ashari, Keyleth's mother. Keyleth often turned into an earth elemental. Earlier in the same episode, Marisha jokingly remarks that somewhere Keyleth is crying without knowing why, accidentally foreshadowing Keyleth's emotional reunion with her long-lost mother.
• Forced Transformation:
  • Happened to Nott in her backstory, when she was turned into a goblin as punishment for killing a goblin chief.
  • This also becomes the Nein's go-to move when defeating monsters; notable examples include turning a furious roc into a bat (which proceeded to attack Fjord), turning an undead giant into a turtle (which proceeded to attack Fjord), turning a fire giant into a cow (which proceeded to attack Fjord), turning a frost worm into a rabbit and then a tortoise (which proceeded to attack Fjord), and turning a dragon turtle into a sea turtle and a sea slug (which, for once, did not attack Fjord).
  • They also learned from the bunny incident (wherein the target un-polymorphed itself by reducing its hit points to zero), and the next undead giant they ran into was turned into a tree sloth.
  • Due to Aeor's strangeness, Caleb also gets turned into a sheep by a bad roll on the wild magic table just as they leave to the Astral Plane.
• Foreshadowing:
  • In episode 2, Molly states that his mother always taught him never to give a story away for free, to which Jester replies that her mother told her not to give "other things" away for free. Jester's mother turns out to be a famous courtesan.
  • Nott's interest in powerful magic comes up at the beginning of Episode 11, when she is clearly fascinated by the Cerberus Assembly that Pumat Sol is tied to. During the confrontation between her, Fjord and Molly, later in the episode, it becomes clear why she was so invested in learning more about them: she wants someone to change her into another race. Or rather back into the race she once was.
  • The manticore encountered in episode 7 was once bound with enchanted manacles, which the Nein later pawn off for scrap iron. The various monsters from the Harvest Close tournament ten episodes later are bound with similar shackles, suggesting the manticore was previously destined for the arena.
  • Caleb's Dark and Troubled Past is given many hints that start as early as the first episode. Notable ones include him not clapping for the fire dancers in Episode 1, him going nearly catatonic when he roasts the Gnoll Priest alive a few episodes later, and him mentioning he "fucked up" whatever future he had at a few points.
  • Chains and manacles have been a recurring theme since early in the campaign. As Matt later confirmed on Talks Machina, all of this was a hint at the Chained Oblivion's involvement in Wildemount.
  • An unintentional example: Jester's tarot card reading for Lucien has History/The Dream for his past, Tyrant for his present, and Death for his future. During the final battle, Jester is the one who lands the killing blow.
  • As the Nein explore Cognouza, the various members of the Somnovem they encounter all ask where the Nonagon is, as they can't sense him. Strange, given Lucien came to Cognouza to meet with the Somnovem in the first place... but starts to make more sense when Lucien turns out to be The Starscream, breaks into the Aether Crux, bombs the Somnovem to pieces using intuit charges, and takes control of Cognouza himself.
• Given Name Reveal:
  • Beau in Episode 74 introduces herself by her full name of "Beauregard Lionett", the party not having known until that point. Why not sooner? Well, they never asked.
  • Nott's real name is Veth Brenatto. She reclaims it in Episode 97 after being restored to her original (halfling) form.
  • Caleb's real name is Bren Aldric Ermendrud, with Caleb being the alias he gave to Nott.
  • Jester was named Genevieve when she was born, with "Jester" being a virtue name she took upon coming of age. Since this is traditional among tieflings, it's not treated as a big reveal like the first two were.
  • Whilst not his first name, Fjord was saddled with a last name from the orphanage he was raised in that he never used - it takes multiple conversations with Caduceus namedropping the Stone family before he remembers, and then reveals it in episode 91.
  • Played with with Mollymauk. Early in the campaign, Molly's real name seems to be Lucien, but Molly insists that they're two different people. And as it turns out, the Molly the players knew was a fragment of Lucien's shattered soul, so he's not wrong. Lucien views Molly the same way after his revival. Later, after Lucien is defeated, Jester revives the soul as a third entity: Kingsley.
  • Played for Laughs with Caduceus. After an intense conversation where it's revealed that multiple party members have been lying about their real names, Nott asks Caduceus, "So what was your name before all this?" Since one of Caduceus' defining character traits is that he never lies (and indeed is terrible at it the few times he tries), this is a source of great amusement to everyone involved.
• Foul First Drink: Caduceus Clay is a tea-loving cleric who has been sheltered at his family's temple his entire life before he decides to travel with the Mighty Nein. As such, since this is a Dungeons & Dragons world, he struggles to find something to drink at the first tavern they stop in. When Nott gets him to try whiskey for the first time, he ends up coughing and tries to take the edge off with milk, which doesn't help. Six drinks in, he still thinks alcohol tastes terrible, to which Beau replies, "You don't drink it 'cause it tastes good." ^note  Because he is a 7-foot-tall firbolg, the fact that it takes more drinks than average to give him a buzz is referenced as a factor as well.
• The Greatest Story Never Told: Downplayed with the final arc. Though the world at large will probably never know what the Mighty Nein did to save Exandria from Lucien and the city of Cognouza, Yussa knows and assures them that he's told his peers about the extent of their heroism.
• Grey-and-Grey Morality: Especially in comparison to the first campaign. The Dwendalian Empire is a brutal totalitarian regime, but not everyone who serves it is corrupt, and they're Necessarily Evil to protect the people from Xhorhas, an enemy of the empire built on the remains of the Betrayer Gods' city, Ghor Dranas. Even anti-empire revolutionaries can be very brutal in their methods. Xhorhas, meanwhile, has legitimate reasons to hate the Empire, but their armies still slaughter anyone caught in their attacks, including civilians, and their queen skirts dangerously towards Revenge Before Reason. The foibles of the player characters caught up in all this are also generally less played for laughs than those of Vox Machina.
• Go Fetch: Beau attempts this against two winter wolves, with the broken remains of a toy sword, during one of the Victory Pit fights; unfortunately for her, Matt rules that the wolves are too smart to fall for such an obvious trick.
• Goldfish Poop Gang: Barely qualifying for this is the Valley Bandits, a group of bandits who are terrible at their job, pick a fight with the M9 in Episode 8, get their leader incinerated, and live in fear of the M9, who they keep accidentally picking fights with.
• Got Me Doing It: The gate into the Folding Halls is called the Heirloom Sphere. The players call it the Happy Fun Ball. Matt tries to keep referring to it as the Heirloom Sphere, but he eventually starts calling it the Happy Fun Ball too.
• Grail in the Garbage: On a whim, Caduceus buys a damaged antique longsword from Pumat Sol's shop. In the course of the party's travels, it's revealed to be a once-mighty magical weapon called the Star Razor. After the Nein have it reforged by Ultimate Blacksmith Umagorn Smeltborne, Fjord starts using it regularly in battle and it's eventually confirmed by no less an arcane scholar than Allura Vysoren to be an honest-to-Melora Vestige of the Divergence.
• Happy Fun Ball: The aforementioned strange magical device ends up being slapped with this moniker by the party; at first glance, it's a puzzle sphere that just spits out treasure. Its other name is "Heirloom Sphere" and, if you count the hideously dangerous chain of pocket dimensions inside of it, "The Archmage's Bane" and "The Folding Halls of Halas." It includes a golem laboratory, a study complete with mimics pretending to be furniture, a garden that's more a forest, a prison, a young blue dragon and its hoard, the Permaheart of the Laughing Hand, and an astral dreadnaught. All while being patrolled by anti-mage golems, and those are just the bits the Mighty Nein have explored so far!
• Hated by All: Surprisingly for a powerful politican and professional propagandist, Trent Ikithon seems to fall under this category. Yussa describes him as 'creepy,' and Ludinus Da'leth (the leader of the Cerberus Assembly and therefore technically Trent's boss), outright calls him 'a disappointment.' Nonetheless, he's tolerated because he's very good at his fucked-up job.
• Hates Rich People: Cree disparagingly mutters "fucking rich kids" when she sees Caleb's lavish Pocket Dimension. She refuses to talk about her own history; ironically, she's unaware that Caleb was a destitute Homeless Hero until quite recently, and the furnishings are all temporary conjurations.
• Heroic BSoD: Whenever Caleb kills a humanoid with fire, he has to make a wisdom save. Failing this save sends him into a brief PTSD-induced stupor.
• "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: The final battle with Lucien deep in the Cognouza Ward is one long, laborious one, spread across several sessions. Over the course of it the Nein repeatedly try to invoke the part of Lucien's personality that made up Mollymauk, and it seems to have an effect in weakening Lucien over the course of the battle.
• Hopeless Boss Fight: Often Averted due to the party’s exceptional ability to turn fights on their heads in spectacular ways, allowing them to escape or prevent fights against foes that are far beyond them
  • Played With regarding the first encounter with Lorenzo and the Iron Shepherds. While their opponents were not as strong as a standard example of this trope, and they managed to inflict a casualty, the party had terrible luck and were outmatched, resulting in a crushing defeat that claimed the life of Mollymauk.
  • Gelidon, an ancient white dragon encountered by the party at an even lower level than when Vox Machina first tangled with Vorugal. Fortunately, they managed to raise a barrier to protect themselves from the monster, and escape without too much risk.
  • Lucien and the Tomb Takers rip the Nein apart when the latter attempt to get their bag of holding back.
• Horse of a Different Color: The Kryn Dynasty have tamed moorbounders, large panther-like cats with bulbous eyes and large curled tusks, for use in battle. They're notable for being faster than horses, but more difficult to control. The Mighty Nein purchase a trio of moorbounders during their time in Xhorhas.
• Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: The bandits that try to attack the party in episode 8, only to watch their leader be immediately incinerated, then be sent away by the Mighty Nein, pantsless and confused. They return in episode 23, and surrender the second they realize they've run into the party again. Even going into a more legit profession like hunting doesn't help in episode 92. Sam claimed in a Talks Machina episode that they're "too dumb to hurt".
• Internal Reveal:
  • In Episode 87, the Nein catch Yasha up on much of what they learned while she was away, namely the fact that "the Angel of Irons" is really the Chained Oblivion.
  • In Episode 88, the rest of the Nein (minus Beau and Nott, who already knew) discover that Caleb was kept in a sanitorium for 11 years. Then the bandaid is ripped off completely as Caleb shares with everyone in the Nein, especially those who had no idea, the full extent of his committing parricide, albeit not completely of sound mind due to his teacher's manipulation.

J-P

• Just a Stupid Accent: The players really branch out: Fjord's accent is from the Deep South though this is eventually revealed to be affected, and his true accent is a posh British one; Caleb has a German accent (which grows noticeably stronger in later episodes when compared to the start of the campaign); Jester's accent is ambiguously Slavic/Russian; Mollymauk speaks with a hint of Irish; and Yasha's accent eventually settles into something obscurely Nordic. Caduceus solely averts this, speaking in a gravelly but un-accented voice. In the very early episodes of the campaign Nott possesses a noticeable high-pitched Cockney accent, which softens considerably over time to often just being a higher-pitched version of Sam's usual voice. And Lucien speaks in an Irish brogue that the cast jokes is so much more consistent than Molly's was.
• Kill It with Fire: Basically anytime Caleb kills something, as most of his damage-dealing spells are fire-based. Though this hasn't been discussed in-game, Liam is very open about the fact that Caleb is a pyromaniac.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: Mollymauk being Killed Off for Real and Caduceus joining the Mighty Nein in his place.
• Little Bit Beastly: In the show, firbolgs such as Pumat Sol, Nila, and Caduceus have subtly cow-like faces, with long rounded ears, and large, flat noses similar to a cow. This is quite different to their traditional appearance in Dungeons & Dragons, where they are more similar to goliath-sized human vikings.
• Little Hero, Big War: Despite war being formally declared between the Dwendalian Empire and Kryn Dynasty in episode 18, the Mighty Nein proceed to focus on smaller mercenary jobs and their own personal goals instead, to the point of actively avoiding taking sides in the larger conflicts around them. By episode 57, the fighting has escalated to the point that they consider committing to Prevent the War (or minimizing the damage) as a collective goal.
  Caleb: I would like to propose something. As a goal. I think we should stop a war. (addressing Beau) And I think we will do that by cutting the cancer out of our homeland.
• Mage-Hunting Monster: Aeorian Hunters are biological weapons created by a society of Nay-Theists, designed to hunt spellcasters and servants of the gods like celestials and fiends. Absorbers can absorb magic and release it as a deadly attack, Nullifiers can innately cast Counterspell and Antimagic Field, and Reversers can invert the effects of healing magic, causing it to harm instead.
• Mama Bear:
  • The Manticore from Episode 7 is definitely one, which Nott finds out the hard way after killing its baby. By the end of its attacks, Nott is left barely standing.
  • Nott herself is very much like this, developing a habit of "adopting" people (including people older than herself) and devoting herself to their protection. Caleb is the most notable example of this; Nott regularly refers to him as "my boy" and openly states that she views him as a son. This quirk makes a lot more sense once it's revealed that she has an actual son whom she's been separated from.
  • In episode 129, Veth goes absolutely berserk when her son Luc is killed by a fire elemental.
• Manly Facial Hair: Fjord grows a beard later in the campaign, befitting his Character Development as he develops his own vision of masculinity rather than imitate Vandran.
• May It Never Happen Again: Downplayed. Though it's one of many dilemmas, Trent's machinations in creating the Volstruckers horribly traumatized Caleb and he is a powerful antagonistic force against the Mighty Nein. In the end, they have him incarcerated and unable to use his magic, ensuring he may never harm any innocents ever again. Furthermore, Beau and Caleb keep an eye on the remaining member of the Cerberus Council, Ludinus, to prevent more strife. As of Campaign Three subverted, as their efforts largely fail to stop Ludinus' plans.
• Meaningful Echo:
  • In episode 14, Molly defends his fake fortunetelling to Beau by saying "I left every town better than I found it." In episode 27, the group considers what to do about the Iron Shepherds and Beau repeats Molly's words and reveals that she really took them to heart.
    Beau: I realized if I can deliberately leave a town shittier than when I found it, of course [Molly] could leave a town better than when he found it. And I'm not going to do that again. I'm not saying that I'm going to go off and be a fucking hero, but maybe we can equal out and I can at least not fuck any more shit up. Take baby steps towards the leaving the town better... thing.
  • Beau repeats Molly's advice again in episode 57, when the team is debating their goals about the war between the Dwendalian Empire and the Kryn Dynasty.
    Jester: Do you really think we’re going to, like, help something, or end it? Are we going to make it worse, are we going to get everyone in the Empire killed? What if we do stuff for the Bright Queen, and because she likes us so much we can talk her into not wanting to kill everyone?
    Beau: Leave every place better than you found it.
  • Episode 139 and 140 has the Nein actively trying to weaponise this - to great effect.
• Medieval European Fantasy: Wildemount was designed with a variety of Eastern European influences.
  • Fantasy Counterpart Culture: The Dwendalian Empire takes inspiration from 15th-century Russia, as well as Germanic nations in Central Europe (e.g., Prussia). In particular, the "Zemnian" language is analogous to German, and place names and official titles are often taken from German or Russian sources.
  • Xhorhas was initially described as having a 13th-century Romanian flair, though in the campaign proper this mostly only appears through character accents.
  • Outside of Wynandir, the cultures and peoples of those regions evoke 14th-century Spanish influences (especially the seafaring Menagerie Coast).
• Metaplot: Sam’s increasingly ridiculous promotional efforts have so far resulted in two: the 69th D&D Beyond Presidential Election (a spoof on political dramas involving a debate, at least two shocking exposés, and a fair few roasts), and Nord by Nordwest: The Quest for The Ultra Codex Reloaded (a parody of cyberpunk/hacker shows like Mr. Robot with increasingly complicated lore, lots of strange outfits, and even more Technobabble.) The former has concluded, the latter is still ongoing.
• Mexican Standoff: An exceptionally tense one in Episode 12. During the break-in at the High Richter's estate, Caleb attempts to abscond with a spell scroll; Fjord, desperate to avoid leaving evidence of their presence, draws his falchion on Caleb. Nott pulls her crossbow on Fjord, so he preps an Eldritch Blast aimed at her in response. Caleb backs off, but Nott steals the spell behind Fjord's back anyway.
• A Molten Date with Death: Nott comes very close to dying after falling in a stream of lava, only surviving due to her ring of water-walking, Caduceus healing her and Beau pulling her out in time.
• Moment Killer: Happens three times in the Reunited one-shot; first when Jester uses Sending and accidentally interrupts Veth and Yeza having sex, then Caleb interrupts Beau and Yasha with his sending stone, then Caleb messages Veth in turn. Fortunately Veth and Yeza are just about done at that point.
• Mood Whiplash:
  • Episode 48. The first three hours or so, when the Mighty Nein reaches land, are the most lighthearted the campaign has been for many episodes: Beau getting a bow on her bo, Fjord waving a fish around, Caleb dog sitting Nugget, Jester giving Caduceus a gift of two cookbooks, which he didn't even realize existed. The very ending of the episode? A very abrupt, incredibly angsty lore dump which reveals that Nott is actually a halfling who was tortured and eventually transformed by goblins, and her original family has now been kidnapped.
  • Episode 97. The Reveal that Essek is responsible for a lot of deaths, and his wanting to make up for them, leads to this humble suggestion.
    Jester: You are going to make a lot of babies.
  • Also, in the same episode, the cutting back and forth between the Nein grimly interrogating Essek and Fjord having to contend with a very stoned-on-magic Beau.
  • In the very last episode, Trent Ikithon has not only found our heroes in the Blooming Grove, but magically bricked up the windows and presumably all exits. The next thing we hear...
    Yasha: It's a trap!
• Mundane Utility:
  • The fancy ball in episode 97 has the bulk of the special guests using glamor and illusory magic like most people use hairpieces and makeup.
  • Fjord regularly uses the Star Razor, an incredibly powerful pre-Calamity sword, as a flashlight.
• Narm Charm: The Chasme in Episode 59 provides an in-universe example. Upon seeing the miniature, the entire cast (Matt included) find the creature completely ridiculous (it's a giant demonic mosquito with a head of human hair). Despite this, it proves to be very threatening in a fight, especially once the party discovers it can instantly knock characters unconscious, can reduce maximum hit points, and instantly kills those it brings to 0 maximum HP.
• Negated Moment of Awesome: In Episode 45, Jester casts Polymorph on a dragon and it fails its saving throw, allowing her to turn it into a crimson weasel. Unfortunately, earlier that turn Beau had told her summoned Fire Elemental to hold its attack until the dragon was in range, so the Elemental takes a swing at it and does enough damage to revert the dragon back to its original form.
• Neutral No Longer: In episode 57, the group discusses their proposed goal of targeting several political figures in the Dwendalian Empire in order to end the war. Downplayed in that they're not entirely loyal to the Kryn Dynasty, and agree to their own plan rather than the Bright Queen's decisions.
• The Night That Never Ends: A non-villainous example. Because the city's majority population is drow, Rosohna is cloaked in a magical eternal night.
• No Entrance: The Archmage Yussa Errenis lives in Tidepeak, a 450-foot-tall Mage Tower with no doors or windows. He or his assistant can cause a door to appear when it's convenient for them, but he prefers that "select friends" visit via Teleportation Circle.
• Not-So-Imaginary Friend: Jester says that when the Traveler used to visit her as a little girl, he came in the guise of a boy about her own age, that only she could see.
• Notorious Parent: Jester turns out to have one; her father is no less than the infamous mob boss and smuggler The Gentleman.
• Number Obsession: Downplayed. One of the things victims of the Somnovem's influence may do is display a mild obsession with nine, with their first Nonagon's writings devolving into frantic scribblings of repeating patterns of nine. After Beau is exposed to the journal, she dreams of the entities and tries to write down what she saw, only to find her notes solely consist of the patterns.
• One-Steve Limit: The first episode introduces Beauregard and an NPC called Bo'sun. The two go by Beau and Bo respectively, resulting in some occasional confusion.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: In episode 140 of Campaign 2, during the final battle with Lucien, Yasha Rages and Travis, for perhaps the first time ever, doesn't respond with an incoherent grunt of encouragement, underscoring the seriousness of the situation.
• Orphaned Etymology: When Beau asks Nott if she knows what Stockholm Syndrome is, Matt decides that the phrase has the same meaning in Exandria as it does in the real world, as a result of an incident involving someone called Gerald Stockholm.
• Previous Player-Character Cameo: In episode 107, Keyleth becomes the first PC from Campaign 1 to make an appearance in Campaign 2, as Veth catches a glimpse of her reuniting with her long-lost mother Vilya through a Tree Stride portal.
• The Promise: Beau and Caleb made a pact in episode 25 to be each other's failsafes and keep each other from doing stupid things or hurting good people in their goals.

Q-Z

• Ragnarök Proofing: The ruins of Aeor are all over the place with this. While the Aeorian automaton "Charlie" is clearly run down with time, a brief session with a still-working repair module restores him completely. There's another apparatus that even works well enough to undo the Wild Magic that took all of Fjord's hair!
• Randomized Transformation: In a moment of Bathos near the climax, Caleb's spellcasting in a difficult fight triggers a Wild Magic surge that turns him into a sheep. Caduceus gambles on invoking Shape Dies, Shifter Survives and brains him with his quarterstaff, restoring him.
• Rapid Aging: Jester undergoes this during the Eiselcross arc when she trades several years of her life to a mysterious ring of arcane statues in return for a vision of the Eyes of Nine.
• Real Life Writes the Plot:
  • Ashley's frequent absence is worked into the plot as Yasha choosing to leave the party to do various things off-screen.
  • Ashley having to return to New York, as well as Travis and Laura having their baby, is the out-of-character reason Yasha, Fjord, and Jester get kidnapped at the end of episode 25.
  • Ashley having to return to New York is also the reason for Yasha's thankfully temporary Face–Heel Turn in Episode 69.
• Really Was Born Yesterday: Molly is fairly "with it" for this trope, but his hedonistic lifestyle and fascination with new experiences make much more sense once he reveals that he has no memory of anything before two years ago.
  Molly: That's a thing? They have stores purely for candy? Will wonders never cease?
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Caduceus gives an epic one to Trent Ikithon at the end of episode 110. Taliesin later explains that Caduceus didn't mean it that way; he thought of Trent as "the dumbest man he's ever met" and was trying to warn him off his current path.
  Caduceus: I think it has been a long time since anyone has pointed out to you that you are a fool. Pain doesn't make people; it's love that makes people. The pain is inconsequential. It's love that saves them and you would know that but you have none around you, you said so yourself. You surround yourself with lies and deceptions. And I wish for you in the future to find someone who will mourn you when you are gone. Respectfully.
• Recognition Failure: Sunbreaker Olomon is a local leader, a paragon of the Kryn Dynasty throughout his many Reincarnations, and a highly recognizable figure as a massive minotaur. As outsiders, the Mighty Nein know none of this, leaving him a bit bemused when they ask him for his name.
• Recollection Sidequest: Defied. Matt had one of these set up for Mollymauk, but upon reaching its introduction it turned out Molly didn't want to remember his past and would rather stay as far away from it as possible, considering his previous identity "someone else who had this body and abandoned it".
• Retraux: The second campaign's first intro is done in the style of an 80's TV opening, with screen flicker, text and fashion to match.
• Rewatch Bonus:
  • Episode 7 hints at Caleb's PTSD involving fire, and Episode 18 confirms it. Go back to the first episode and look at the players when Orna the Fire Fairy does her fire dance. Caleb is the only one not clapping. Liam was dropping hints from the very beginning.
  • In Episode 8, Nott tells the group she's "of child-bearing age" and doesn't know her exact age since goblins don't celebrate birthdays. As of Episode 49, this is a convenient cover story to hide the fact she's an adult halfling woman, who has had a child, in the body of a young goblin, and she isn't sure how long she's been a goblin for.
  • Nott's aliases "Veth," "Bren," and "Otto," are all allusions to her real name, Veth Brenatto. Additionally, when Nott tells Calianna that her name is "Bren" in Episode 21, Caleb stares at her for a solid minute — because that's his real name.
• Running Gag:
  • Jester using Thaumaturgy to open all the windows.
  • Nott ending every casting of Message with "you can respond to this message".
  • Yasha announcing "I would like to rage" and being accompanied by Travis shouting "YEAAAAAAH!" in a Grog-like barbarian voice.
  • Jester tends to cast Sending a lot, which has a limit of 25 words per use. Since Jester uses a combination of Buffy Speak and Motor Mouth, someone (usually Travis/Fjord) will start keeping track of the words used on their fingers to determine at what point her message is cut off (usually before she even gets to the point).
  • If Beau does something impressive, Ashly Burch will react with "Keg is aroused". This leads to someone shouting "The audience is aroused!" at the live game for Episode 29.
  • Whenever the name "Uk'otoa" is mentioned by Matt, the rest of the cast will whisper it in awe as a chorus. This reached its height at a live game where the entire audience did it.
  • Similarly, whenever Matt off-handedly says "it's been awhile-" the entire cast sings the line in the style of Staind's Aaron Lewis.
  • The Nein's encounter with Arcanist Allura Vysoren leads them to ask many powerful, connected people about the current membership in the Tal'Dorei Council - usually at the most inopportune times. (It's funny because their previous player characters are on the council). After this became a running gag, Matt began responding to the query "Who's on the Tal'Dorei Council?" with "Every time you ask, one of them dies."
  • Fjord gets attacked by polymorphed enemies. The roc-turned-bat, the undead giant-turned-turtle, the fire giant-turned cow, the frost worm-turned snow bunny and then tortoise. Finally, the Running Gag Stumbles when the polymorphed dragon turtle (transformed into a sea turtle and a sea slug) avert this for once.
  • Nott repeatedly insisting that Caleb is the leader of the group, despite Caleb's own demurrals.
• Secret Test of Character:
  • Upon meeting The Mighty Nein, the Plank King discreetly asks them to keep an eye on Avantika and report any treasonous activity to him. They immediately take the bait by breaking into Avantika's quarters looking for any information on Uk'otoa she might have been concealing from them, and stealing her diary: which contains very treasonous material. When Avantika forces their hand by using magic to uncover the theft, Beau flees with the diary to The Plank King only for him to reveal that he wanted to see if The Mighty Nein would break his Pirate's Code by selfishly betraying a fellow member of the Revelry. The only thing that saves their lives was the fact they actually uncovered a plot to overthrow him, and even then the Revelry has orders to kill them on sight should they return.
  • Caleb's backstory contains an extremely messed-up one. Near the end of his training to be an assassin, his mentor, the Archmage Trent Ikithon, modified his memory so that he remembered overhearing his parents discussing treason. He and his fellow students immediately murdered them, only to realize that the whole thing was essentially their final exam to become Vollstrucker, Empire assassins and spies.
• Sequence Breaking: The revelation of the Gentleman being Jester's father was supposed to be a late game reveal, but because the Mighty Nein ended up asking the right questions at the right time they learned this fact relatively early in the game.
• Shape Dies, Shifter Survives: Polymorphed creatures gain the new form's Hit Points; lethal damage ends the spell and transfers any extra HP loss to the original form. Caduceus exploits this after a Wild Magic surge transforms Caleb into a sheep, killing the sheep with his quarterstaff and restoring Caleb with only a small headache.
• Shipwreck Start: The animated intro opens on Fjord's backstory, getting thrown overboard by an explosion which destroyed the ship he was working on. To avoid drowning, he subconsciously agrees to a warlock pact with the leviathan demigod Uk'otoa and wakes up onshore with his new falchion.
• Show Within a Show: There's been an astounding number of these, from the in-universe (smutty) novels "Tusk Love" and "Courting of the Crick," to the Zemnian fairytale "Der Katzenprintz," to the fables in Narrative Telephone.
• Significant Anagram: Veth Brenatto is an anagram of Nott the Brave.
• A Simple Plan:
  • In Episode 31, Jester decides to troll a temple of Bahamut to earn some brownie points with The Traveler (at the time believing he has abandoned her), and drags Nott along with her. What begins with setting off firecrackers during a sermon ends with the two fleeing from half the city guard and several enraged clergy.
    • Made all the more ridiculous by the fact that they accidentally give said city guard the impression that they are cultists of Tiamat.
  • Episode 35. The plan? Investigate a shady deal at the docks and interrogate one NPC. A few bad Stealth and Deceptions rolls later, and a fight breaks out, resulting in the party killing the suspicious ship's entire crew. The guards hear and commotion and are on the way, so the party, desperate for an escape route, decides to board the ship, raise anchor, and sail it out of the harbour. That's right, an attempt to talk to one NPC resulted in the Mighty Nein accidentally becoming pirates.
  • Episode 42, the party executes a plan to break into Avantika's quarters and find incriminating evidence fairly well; the only flaw being something they didn't really even know to look for, namely that Vera, Avantika's second in command, was secretly an adept spellcaster able to locate objects such as the journal they stole. The ensuing confrontation ends up with most of the crew dead and the Nein + Avantika dragged before the local authority, where Avantika is killed and the Nein are banished.
• Slipping a Mickey: Episode 93 takes this normally simple and cheap trick and turns it into an absolute game-changer. Jester has to make a Deal with the Devil with the hag Isharnai, and ends up slipping her a cupcake that's spiked with the Dust of Deliciousness. That's not the actual whammy; it's just to lower her magical defense so that Jester can cast Modify Memory and con her into accepting Jester's deal. This is such an ultimate prank that it leads to the Traveler, Jester's god of trickery, trusting her enough to ask for her help planning "TravelerCon" and to reveal that he's actually an archfey in disguise.
• Snow Means Death: In episode 26, in a case of unintentional foreshadowing, it snowed the night that the Mighty Nein set an ambush for the Iron Shepherds. During said ambush the next morning, Mollymauk was killed amid the fresh snow.
• Sophisticated as Hell: One golden moment in episode 97:
  Matt: Nott's invisible and (rolled a stealth check) over 30, no one could have seen Nott! Beyond the eyes of the gods behind the Divine Gate, they're watching on, going "Oh shit, how'd that happen?!"
• Spoiler Opening: The animated opening introduced in episode 44, which gives away Molly’s death, due to his only presence in the opening being a prominent shot of his grave.
• Stargazing Scene: Caleb and Nott get one of these in Episode 36 while aboard the Mystake. Unfortunately for Caleb's excited astronomy lesson, Nott apparently doesn't believe in other planets.
• Stink Bomb: Jester gets her hands on some ready-made ones called oops-stones, unassuming little things that can empty a room on impact.
  Yasha: That smells like a massive shit...
• Stumbling Upon the Lost Wizard: The Nein and their stowaway, Twiggy, find a golden orb able to make coins appear from the air, but discover that it is actually a portal to a pocket dimension that is home to the long-lost wizard Halas and his many monsters and experiments. This has factors of both the wizard and scientist version of the trope, since while Halas has dragons and enchantments galore, he also has laser weaponry, automatons of stone and steel, and even malformed clones akin to Frankenstein's monster.
• Stunned Silence:
  • Matt, Marisha, and Travis' reaction to the overwhelming support for the Vox Machina Kickstarter, followed by helpless laughter.
  • In-Universe, the entire party's response to the Wham Line "It's me. Where's my son?". It takes several seconds for Beau to get herself together enough to falter out, "We need to talk."
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • When Beau ends up being the one to kill a large demon, she decides to finish it by ripping out its heart. Due to the creature's large size and her unfamiliarity with its anatomy, it ends up taking a decent amount of time to get it out. It's also a complete bloody mess as this happens, which disgusts everyone else.
  • Jester's main goal while exploring was to find her missing father, who apparently left her mother searching for a new home for them and hasn't returned for over two decades. Once she finds out that her father is the Gentleman, she tries to tell him the news, only for him to reject her. Turns out that if your father ran out two decades ago and hasn't returned, there was probably a reason he doesn't want to contact you. That being said, they eventually turn the relationship around, with some minor prompting from Caduceus, and by near the end of the campaign, Jester trusts him enough to be sure he'll shelter Luc and Yeza as well as Marion when the group is on the run.
  • The Mighty Nein have a habit of making plans with only limited knowledge of what they're doing, and what obstacles they may end up facing. This has lead to their plans failing multiple times due to being unable to account for factors that they never noticed. For instance, the fact that Vera could use Locate Item to find Avantika's missing journal, or that the survivors of their fight with the Kryn solders might end up appearing in the Bright Queen's court, have both worked against them.
  • While talking to Queen Leylas about important news, Jester and Nott end up heading off into a comedic tangent, only for the Queen to stop them and tell them that her patience is thinning. Busy political workers aren't as forgiving about going off topic, especially if the topic involves an attack on their city.
• Sympathy for the Devil: Literally. Halas has a horned devil bound in his Halls, who begs them to read a "poem" to him (which would almost certainly release him). They don't do it, and mostly just ignore him - but Jester, who knows exactly what it's like to be trapped and alone feels horrible about leaving it. Actually, this is one of Jester's recurring character traits. She's very bad at telling the difference between a villain and a potential friend.
• Tarot Troubles: Mollymauk created his own Tarot deck as part of his following of the Moonweaver and used it as part of his circus job to do cold readings on people and giving them what they expected. After his death, Jester obtained the deck and started doing genuine tarot reading herself. Both times she used it, on Fjord and Lucien the results have been accurate enough to shake the entire table.
• That's No Moon: The Cliffhanger of episode 99. What appears to be an island that's somehow getting closer to the Ball-Eater is in fact a dragon turtle.
• The Rest Shall Pass: Pumat sends the Nein on after Obann while he handles the cultists and the demons.
• Vitriolic Best Buds:
  • Fjord and Nott are constantly giving each other shit, with Nott taking shots at Fjord's relative slight stature and lack of strength compared to other orcs, and Fjord enjoying playing pranks on Nott based on her fear of water. But by episode 94, they both admit that they care about each other.
  • Molly and Beau take an instant dislike to one another, resulting in Snark-to-Snark Combat and quite a lot of plain old needling. This eases a little when they get high together. Beau only admits how much she cared for Molly after he dies.
• Wham Episode: Practically every couple of episodes. In this show, when it rains, it pours.
  • Episode 12 ends with Ulog blowing himself up to take the High Richter down with him, and that isn't even the worst part. The Zauberspire explodes, seemingly the result of a full-on attack on Zadash by Xhorhas.
  • Though it doesn't seem like it until the last moments, Episode 25. Kiri is left behind with a new family in Hupperdook, and the Nein begin travelling to their next destination... and unknown shady individuals attack and capture Fjord, Jester and Yasha.
  • Episode 26: Mollymauk dies, and, with Jester gone and the M9 way too far from any possible source of resurrection spells, it turns out to be the first mid-campaign perma-death of a player character in Critical Role's history (not counting Tiberius, as he had already left Vox Machina before dying, or Vax, as he died at the very end of the campaign).
  • Episode 43 begins with what is one of the most intense battles of the campaign thus far, between the Mighty Nein and Avantika's crew, during which Caleb sets most of the Squalleater on fire, Fjord summons a barlgura, and Beau has to race up to the Plank King to hand him evidence that Avantika was plotting against him. After the battle dies down, the Plank King holds an impromptu court where he passes judgment on both Avantika and the Mighty Nein, killing Avantika and banishing the Mighty Nein from Darktow.
  • The entire last hour of Episode 48 is just one wham after another: Yeza was working for Trent Ikithon and is now captured; Trent is working on a new school of magic and recruited students based on their aptitude for it; Nott and Yeza somehow have a halfling son.
  • Episode 49. Oh boy. Nott was born as a halfling named Veth Brenatto, taken by goblins with her family, caught and drowned when she tried to escape with them, and magically turned into a goblin. Also, "Caleb Widogast" is an alias - his real name is Bren Aldric Ermendrud.
  • Episode 56. The Mighty Nein earn an audience with Empress Leylas Kryn, but it goes badly thanks to a couple of bad rolls. They are about to be arrested when Caleb smooth talks his way into giving the Empress proof of Dwendalian aggression, and hands over the Dodecahedron. This move a) causes the Empress to name them Heroes of Xhorhas, b) throws the campaign into chaos as Matt has to figure out what the hell to do now, and c) very likely earned Liam the presidency of D&D Beyond.
  • Episode 61. Uk'otoa, angry with Fjord for not freeing him, temporarily takes his warlock power away. The threat is clear. Later, the party discovers that they have been given a mansion in Xhorhas in gratitude for their deeds. They may be stuck there for a while.
  • Episode 62. Jester scrys on the man responsible for the demon rifts, who is in a meeting with the ruler of the Dwendalian Empire. She discovers that the empire is about to launch a massive attack on Xhorhas. This leads the Nein to debate the merits of telling the Bright Queen or not. They decide to do it, and do it right away.
  • Episode 65. Fjord has one of his dreams again... only this time another, motherly voice intervenes before Uk'otoa can "punish" him. The Dungeon Master also notes that Fjord used to feel cold whenever he used his powers, but he doesn't when he used them to help Jester. Another entity has its eyes on Fjord and might have a path to escape Uk'otoa's influence.
  • Episode 69. Obann manages to release a horrific monster called the Laughing Hand and forces Yasha into a Face–Heel Turn. The party barely escapes with their lives as the Laughing proves far too much for them and they're forced to leave Yasha behind. The ending leaves it ambiguous as to whether or not Yasha is being forced to be evil or if this is who she really is, and makes it clear she and the Laughing Hand are tearing their way out of the Crypt, soon to be released upon the world.
  • Episode 72. Fjord destroys his pact weapon and loses his magic, seemingly for good, and officially drops his fake southern accent with the group, letting go of his obsession with Vandren.
  • Episode 82: The Nein find and destroy the Permaheart of the Laughing Hand. Not only does this mean it can be killed, it also seems to seriously affect the abomination on the outside. But then the Mighty Nein decide to jump into the mouth of an Astral Dreadnought.
  • Episode 83: The Mighty Nein, with help from Allura and Yussah, uncover the truth about the Angel of Irons: there is no Angel of Irons. It is a false name used to hide the actions of Tharizdun the Chained Oblivion, one of the most feared Betrayer Gods (if not THE most).
  • Episode 85: Where to begin... Jester discovers that the Gentleman really is her father, Nott and Beau confess their respective crushes on Caleb and Jester, Astrid's letter is retrieved, Pumat Prime will enter into battle along the Mighty Nein, the cult of the Angel of Irons fakes a Kryn assault on Rexxentrum as a distraction for Obann and co. to reach the fane underneath the Cathedral of Pelor (which almost certainly contains one of Tharizdun's chains), the Crown's Council just so happens to be meeting just as the attack is happening (so the leadership of the Empire is all in one place), Vence is going to open an Abyssal portal in Rexxentrum to create further havoc, we get official confirmation that the cult has infiltrated the government of Xhorhas (though we don't know their agents), and a corrupted cardinal of Pelor is in league with Obann and Vence.
  • Episode 86: Caduceus frees Yasha with a clutch Dispel Magic, and both Obann and the Laughing Hand are killed, presumably permanently. But, Tharizdun transforms Obann's body into an abomination as a final "fuck you" for failing.
  • Episode 87: The Nein, with (a LOT of) help from the Caedogeist, finish off Obann for good (maybe), and are brought before King Dwendal, who charges them with arranging peace talks with Xhorhas. However, they also meet Trent Ikithon again, who reveals his knowledge that "Caleb Widogast" is really Bren Aldric Ermendrud.
  • Episode 91: Caleb, with help from Nott and Essek, completes the spell that will turn Nott back into her halfling form! They try it, but discover that Nott is under a curse which binds her to her goblin body.
  • Episode 93: The Nein confront Isharnai the Prism Sage, the hag responsible for Nott's curse. Jester is able to drug her with the Dust of Deliciousness, which grants disadvantage on Wisdom rolls, and casts Modify Memory on her. She makes her think that Jester was such good company that she agreed to just drop the curse without requiring a price from any of the Nein!
  • Episode 94: The Nein make the trek to Whitedawn Lagoon, to meet the Stone family and find at least some of Caduceus' family. On the way, the Traveler appears to Jester and tells her the truth: he is Artagan, an Archfey, and it was her bond with him that led to his divine ascension. Furthermore, he needs her help to form an organized religion of the Traveler, as his worshipers' competing ideas as to what he actually is is slowly killing him.
  • Episode 97: The Nein discover that Essek has been secretly working with the Cerberus Assembly, and Nott is finally returned to her halfling form.
  • Episode 108: Travelercon! With Jester's help, the Traveler/Artagan attempts to trick his followers into believing he was the Moonweaver the entire time. Unfortunately, the real Moonweaver gets pissed off and threatens to drag Artagan back to the Fey for an eternity of imprisonment. He is ultimately saved by Jester's intercession, but still exposed and humiliated in front of all his followers.
  • Episode 111 ends with the earth-shattering revelation that Molly’s body (if not Molly as we knew him) is alive.
  • Episode 140: An intense, climatic fight ends with Lucien's defeat, the souls of Cognouza being freed and the fleshy corruption within receding. Caleb attempts a Raise Dead ritual to bring Mollymauk back to life, failing after Matt rolls a natural one. Caduceus utilizes Divine Intervention, managing to hit the fifteen percentile dice roll on a d100 to succeed. For the first time in 114 episodes Taliesin voices an alive Molly, greatly disoriented mentally but possessing some memory of the Nein.
  • Episode 141 lives up to its status as the campaign finale. Jester casts Greater Restoration on "Molly"; the resulting soul decides to identify as Kingsley and consider Molly a deceased older brother. Veth overcomes her fear of water and goes for a skinny dip. Marion and the Gentleman are back together. The Nein is ambushed at the Blooming Grove by Trent Ikithon, with Astrid and Eodwulf in tow. A pitched battle ensues with the Grove on fire, Astrid and Eodwulf (mostly Astrid) turning on Trent and enabling his capture. Artagan says goodbye to Jester. She, Fjord, and Kingsley become pirates, and manage to locate Vandran. Kingsley eventually steals a ship from Fjord and runs away from them. Caleb explores the ruins of Aeor with Essek and finds the means to carry out his plan of returning to the past and saving his parents, but destroys them instead. He embarks on a romantic relationship with Essek, later becoming Amicable Exes. Trent Ikithon, Thoreau Lionett, and Archivist Zeenoth face justice for what they did to Caleb and Beau. Beau and Yasha travel to Xhorhas to visit Zuala's grave so Yasha can say one final goodbye.
• Wham Line:
  • In Episode 18, Beau pushes Caleb to reveal why he's so afraid of fire and the reason is so shocking and unexpected that Liam has to ask most of the table to leave before he says it. The sheer terror of this revelation changed the direction of the party, who had previously shown a lot of interest in heading to the Soltryce Academy, a goal largely dropped after Caleb's confession.
    Caleb: I'm going to tell you the story about how I murdered my mother and father.
  • In Episode 26, during the confrontation with the Iron Shepherds, Matt asks Taliesin a question that confirms that one of the main characters will die and that someone will have to replace him.
    Matt: Molly, in the brief moments of consciousness, what do you want to be your last words?
  • In Episode 42, the tension rises throughout the episode as the party attempts to learn more and more about Avantika without alerting her or bumbling their way into a fight. At the very end of the episode, Liam says he's going to cast Wall of Fire, definitively ending the party's attempt to stay on good termss with Avantika and turning her into a full-fledged enemy.
  • In Episode 48, Nott Disguise Selfs to look like a tan, plump halfling to go talk to a neighbour of her friend Yeza.
    Nott: Edith, it's me. Where's my son?
  • In Episode 111, after months of speculation and debate, Matthew Mercer describes a long-dead character walking amongst the living, prematurely ending the party's downtime plans and kicking off a new Story Arc dedicated to discovering how this person came Back from the Dead.
    Matt:... You see trudging through a familiar blizzard, a purple skinned tiefling, in heavy coat and hood, walking with a grin and an intensity of confidence and purpose.
  • Episode 140, post-Lucien defeat and freeing the purple-skinned Tiefling body from its monstrous shell. After the initial failed attempt from Caleb, Caduceus uses divine intervention to appeal for help in resurrecting Molly. Brilliant rolls ensue, and Matt turns to Taliesin.
    Matt: ... You feel in this place of cold stillness, of death and vacancy, a warm breeze. It smells sweet, with hints of ocean. The green turns to brown and pulls away. Your eyes open for the first time in a long time.

• What the Hell, Hero?: Matt points out multiple times in episode 35 that the local guards are looking at the situation and concluding that they're trying to steal a ship, because they are. They go through with it anyway.
• Why Won't You Die?:
  • The Halas clone abomination in episode 82 has to be killed three times before the Nein finally realise they need to burn it.
  • It is also one of Yasha's abilities as of level 14, as Rage Beyond Death lets her keep fighting even after suffering three failed death saves as long as she is raging and conscious.
• Wretched Hive: The Mighty Nein visit two of these during their travels. The first is Shadycreek Run, a haven for criminals that fled the Dwendalian Empire and is run by four competing crime families. The second is Darktow, a pirate town on a remote island surrounded by reefs that is ruled by the Plank King.
• Wrong Context Magic: The magic of Dunamancy that the party begins to slowly learn more and more about as the campaign progresses. In this case, it's classified as magic that deals with manipulating time, gravity, and entropy with spells that don't neatly fall into any of the eight established branches of magic. Knowledge of this school is highly sought after by the Dwendalian Empire, to the point where they've been conscripting anyone with the potential to utilize this magic, and Xhorhas has already been aware of this magic for centuries before the empire even discovered it, having used their beacons to give themselves a form of immortality through reincarnation.
• Year Outside, Hour Inside: In Episode 45 the party get trapped inside a magic sphere they nickname the Happy Fun Ball. From their perspective they spend at most a couple of hours searching the rooms inside and fighting a dragon. When they finally escape and return to their ship the crew they left behind inform them they've been missing for a week. In episode 80 they spend more time exploring the sphere and establish, via communication with the outside, that one hour inside the sphere is the equivalent of one day outside.
• Yellow Eyes of Sneakiness: Nott, being a goblin, has naturally yellow eyes. Given that she's also a kleptomaniac rogue with a love of collecting stolen trinkets, the trope is certainly in play.
• You All Meet in an Inn: How the campaign begins. Downplayed in that the cast is actually split into three groups (Caleb & Nott, Fjord, Jester & Beau, and Molly & Yasha) who had met before the campaign starts.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are / You Are Not Alone:
  • The group delivers this toward Nott and Caleb in episode 49, after they reveal their tragic backstories to the team.
  Jester (to Caleb): I don't think our actions define who we are all the time. Good people do bad things sometimes. Even bad people do good things. I think you're a good person.
  Beau: For the record, Nott, I don't think it's us that's been rubbing off on you. I think it's you that's been rubbing off on us.
  • Later:
    Beau: Caleb, you were right when you said earlier that it's too late now. That we're involved. But I don't think we see it in the same way that you do. It's too late now because, whether you like it or not, we all care about you and are invested in, you know, your happiness, I guess? So... Don't run. You can say you don't believe in anything, and that's fine. Believe in us, just a little bit?
    Caleb: I will consider it heavily.
  • After the defeat of Lucien the Neo Somnovem, and a failed resurrection ritual, Fjord has this to say:
    Fjord: (to Essek) ...if you were to ask my wise friend Caduceus, he would tell you that life continues on, it evolves, it grows. Don’t think there’s an end. You might not be able to see the next trip. But you have more time, you have more time to study. You have a talent I don’t understand. Use that anger and frustration and let it fuel you. If you have regret over this life, I know you can turn it around. You’ve shown me all I’ve needed to see.
• You Have Failed Me: This is pulled on Obann in epic fashion. Yasha gets the HDYWTDT on him, and he cries out to the Angel of Irons, unaware that the Angel is really Tharizdun. In response, Tharizdun transforms his body into an abomination, killing his essence so that the abomination is all that remains.
• You Say Tomato: The group will occasionally playfully tease Caleb for his pronunciation of some word or another, often because his accent has caused the rest of them to misunderstand him.
• You Wake Up on a Beach: How Fjord started as a warlock in his backstory. After his ship sunk and he drowned, he woke up on a beach, with a falchion next to him.

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"Thanks for a good story, Matt."
"Let's do it again!"

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