The Vasselheim story arc splits the party into two groups to prove their worth to the "Slayer's Take," a local adventurer's guild in the continent of Vasselheim. This arc features guest appearances by Felicia Day, Mary Elizabeth Mc Glynn, Wil Wheaton, and Will Friedle, adding a new twist to the now-divided adventuring band. This arc also includes the first backstory related episode (episode 22), as Keyleth visits a related druid tribe.
As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.
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Episode 17: Hubris
- The entire match between Kurn the Hammer and "Phillip" is awesome for just how each hit was described on both ends.
- The bookie who first welcomed the group into the Crucible even congratulates Grog on his fight, saying that no one has ever given Kurn such a run for his money before.
- When fighting the hydra....
- Tiberus casts telekinesis twice in order to grab two of its heads, smash them against each other and then tie their necks in a knot. Not only does this do 14 damage to each but they grapple each other, which means they can't attack that turn.
- Scanlan casts Bigsby's Hand and punches a head clean off.
- Vax exploits an opening to sneak attack a head by running up and jumping onto a neck, stabbing it and then sliding down for additional (and sneak attack!) damage.
- Tiberus, again, uses up sorcery points to fire off a double fireball, which kills the creature. He uses the "How Do You Want to Do This" moment in an attempt to rectify a misunderstanding regarding the hydra's radius. He casts Control Flame to concentrate the blast so it doesn't hurt his teammates. It is a cooler visual anyway, with the concentrated explosion shattering the walls Keyleth made and leading the hydra to impale itself on a broken shard.
Episode 18: Trial of the Take, Part 1
- The party is trying to rent horses but the guy they find will only sell them to hedge his risk. While Vex and Lyra try to haggle, Zahra just drops back and subtly casts Suggestion. Not only does the guy rent the horses, but he does so at half-price. This is Mary Elizabeth McGlynn's first D&D success and its basically a Jedi Mind Trick. She look so pleased with herself and Travis hugs her.
- Taliesin rolling three natural 20s during combat. Rolling a 20 during combat is difficult enough, but to do it three times... that's epic. This results in Percy going on a shooting rampage in his jim-jammies.
- After past attempts at either failing to attack or nearly getting killed after a successful strike, Trinket finally gets his first kill on the stream.
- Kudos for the ranger! Vex's Primeval Awareness is how they spot their query and her favored-terrain bonus sees the group safely though a dense forest. They make better time thanks to her guidance (a big deal given their time limit), bypass a ruin housing a "spooky blue thing" and avoid dropping into a frozen lake.
- Lyra and Zahra show off their magical abilities quite well during the battle, to say the least.
- You almost wouldn't realize this was the first time Mary Elizabeth McGlynn's played D&D from how well she carried Zahra's character.
Episode 19: Trial of the Take, Part 2
- Lyra casts Disintegrate and rolls up eighty points of damage.
- Zahra Jedi Mind Tricks the Giants through Suggestion, convincing them to stop fighting and instead lead her party to the dragon. Then, Mary rolles high enough to beat Rimefang's intimidation roll with her persuasion, resulting in the frost giants joining the battle on her side instead of his.
- Trinket's vocabulary is astounding. And apparently sexy.
- During the battle with Rimefang, the wyrm tries to fly away to get a better vantage point... only for Scanlan to use Bigby's Hand to grab his wing and force him back down to the ground thanks to Scanlan revealing his newest feat: War Caster. Sure, it results in Scanlan nearly dying when the dragon retaliates against him, but still, never underestimate the bard.
- Not only does everyone live against Rimefang, Zahra gets the killing blow!Rimefang: (while being ripped apart by Hellish Rebuke) You can't-Zahra: Yes, I fucking can.
- The best bit is that she most likely saved Percy's life, since she used Hellish Rebuke as a reaction to kill Rimefang during its turn. This is very relevant, as Percy was one death saving throw away from dying and right next to the dragon, which probably would've attacked and killed him right then and there if it hadn't been for Zahra.
- Loot! Thanks to Laura rolling a natural 20 on perception, Vex spotted Rimefang's treasure hoard: 4,032 gold coins, a big diamond, other valuable gems, and three magical items.
- The soundtrack for the show is expanded to include music from Pillars of Eternity, which Matt Mercer did voices in (and Marisha reviewed with Hot Pepper Gaming).
Episode 20: Trial of the Take, Part 3
- Talking to Grog about the flying carpet.
- "Scanlan" and Keyleth being married.
- Orion's voice acting, and just generally good role-play.
- Tiberius manages to avert a fight with the Velvet Caberet's bouncers by turning into the establishment's boss and managing to remember his accent well enough to do a pretty good impersonation. (Which is one for Orion and the other players as well)
- As with Mary Elizabeth McGlynn in the previous two episodes, this was Will Friedle's first time playing! More impressively, given the range of characters he's know to perform (usually nice guys or at the least good-hearted characters, usually with some comedy), the fact that he's playing a jerkass and straight man entirely convincingly says a lot about his acting capacity.
- One for Matt Mercer and his awesome worldbuilding and ability to connect story threads, in this episode we hear in passing of the Raven Queen's temple, and Keyleth buys a raven mask.
Episode 21: Trial of the Take, Part 4
- A D&D miracle — Wil Wheaton finally rolls a Natural 20!
- Keyleth proved to be an integral asset throughout the episode, dealing the killing blow to the Otyugh and using her Minxie form to excellent effect against the Rakshasa (the reason Matt asked for her alignment — magical piercing damage from a Good-aligned character did super-effective damage!). There's also her Heroes' Feast as well, which gave the party the needed strength to push on ahead.
- Despite the party being so unbalanced in terms of mindsets during their contract, everyone was able to pull together when it truly counted against the Rakshasa:
- Vax and Keyleth dealing the most damage thanks to their Good alignments and weapons that dealt magical piercing damage.
- Thorbir distracting the Shield Guardian.
- Kashaw providing the needed healing.
- Tiberius acting on support duty with Slow, Silence, and Counterspell.
- The duo of events that led to the Rakshasa's Karmic Death — Tiberius succeeds in preventing him from escaping the battle with a level 6 Counterspell (against the level 7 Plane Shift), and Vax gives him a mighty Sneak Attack for threatening their loved ones earlier as he's escaping.
- Tiberius' efforts throughout the episode were awesome alone. From utterly laying a smackdown on the Otyugh with multiple empowered spells to successfully expelling the undead spirit from Keyleth's body (despite her ending up being near-death) to using what limited spells he had left to great effect against the Rakshasa.
- Kashaw's exit — he gives Keyleth The Big Damn Kiss. Scanlan could learn a thing or two.
Episode 22: Aramente to Pyrah
- Pike suddenly returning for the episode was a total surprise to the party and Critters alike.
- Percy has one with his acrobatic arm shot. Laura/Vex even punctuates it with, "That was awesome."
- Even though he'd been wary of lava since episode 7, Vax swallows his fear to make the jump after Keyleth.
- During Keyleth's trial, we have Cerkonos as a large fire elemental slugging it out with her large water elemental form. Matt describes it as a Clash-of-the-Titans scale fight.
- Marisha's acting in itself was fantastic from the start of the Fire Ashari half of the episode, particularly when Keyleth described her vision during her Earth Ashari training, all the way to the episode's conclusion.
Episode 23: The Rematch
- Grog gets his rematch, and a very clutch revenge.
- This rematch is highly anticipated by the Braving Grounds. Everyone stops whatever they're doing to run over, watch and gamble on this grudge match of titans. This extends to the chatroom, and so Matt makes clear the both-raging-means-neither-is thing.
- The most epic Shout-Out so far. It even knocks Kern prone for a round.
- Grog has learned Relentless Rage, which triggers one round after Kern's. Travis combines this with Badass Boast and Ironic Echo.
- It is technically cheating but Scanlan slips in two doses of Inspiration and Cutting Words to assist Grog by making them appear to be mundane cheering and Trash Talk.
- Earthbreaker Groon, the High Priest of Kord, gives the nod of approval to the victorious Goliath. This is a tremendously big deal. Just the way that Matt stages Groon's entrance is really cool.
- Doubles as Funny but Victor the black powder prospector. Just that entire scene with the contrasts between the collected and proper Percy, and the wild and wily Victor.
- A massive CMOA for Matthew Mercer since he came up with Victor and everything about him on the spot and didn't corpse even once.
- Dark as it may be, Vax knocking out Vox Machina Fanboy Kynan deserves a mention. Thanks to some great rolling, he ends up doing over 50 points of damage.
