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Critical Role: Call of the Netherdeep is an adventure module with themes of heroism, underwater horror and fantasy. It is set in the Exandria campaign setting and designed for the…
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Investigate this subjectCritical Role: Call of the Netherdeep is an adventure module with themes of heroism, underwater horror and fantasy. It is set in the Exandria campaign setting and designed for the 5th edition of the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game.
Critical Role: Call of the Netherdeep is an adventure module with themes of heroism, underwater horror and fantasy. It is set in the Exandria campaign setting and designed for the 5th edition of the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game. It was published by Wizards of the Coast and released on March 15, 2022.
This adventure module is designed to take player characters from 3rd level to 12th level. Call of the Netherdeep's story is considered to be concurrent with Critical Role's second campaign; however, Dungeon Masters can adjust the timeline.
The module begins in Jigow, a town in the Wastes of Xhorhas region on the continent of Wildemount. From there, players will continue across Xhorhas to the fort-city of Bazzoxan before heading to Ank’Harel, a city on the continent of Marquet. Three factions are set up in Ank'Harel – the Allegiance of Allsight, the Consortium of the Vermilion Dream, and the Library of the Cobalt Soul – and the party's faction alignment will impact the track of their mission as they are drawn to an underwater region called the Netherdeep. Each location has a dungeon for players to explore in order to meet their objectives.
To undertake the deep-sea exploration, players will need to acquire "spells or magical items designed for underwater breathing" along with "items crafted from a unique mineral known as ruidium" in order to withstand the water pressure. Players will also have to contend with the corrupting nature of ruidium. CBR highlighted that the Netherdeep is a region "of deep woe and despair" and that "its dark, labyrinthian depths are host to an imprisoned Apotheon (or demigod) known as Alyxian, who created the tomb to hold himself for reasons the adventuring players must discover on their own. Alyxian's emotions ripple throughout the depths, giving the entire region a heavy, oppressive madness and sense of disconnection not dissimilar to The Far Realm".
Additionally, the player characters will be in a race against the clock because a rival party is after the same set of objectives as the player group. Depending on how the players treat these NPC adventurers over the course of the module, this rival party can become "powerful allies or potent enemies". The story has multiple potential endings, both good and bad, based on the choices the players make throughout the adventure.
The new adventure module was announced on October 12, 2021. It is the first dedicated adventure book for the Exandria setting and is the second collaboration book between Wizards of the Coast and Critical Role Productions. The book was released on March 15, 2022 in the United States. However, the European release was delayed to April 5, 2022 due to shipping delays. The book is also available as a digital product through Wizards of the Coast licensees such as D&D Beyond, Fantasy Grounds, and Roll20.
The book's design was led by Matthew Mercer, James J. Haeck, and Christopher Perkins. Mercer was inspired by the Mariana Trench and other "unknown, deep, lightless spaces". On the book's development, Perkins stated that he was "on the backend process" of the book's creation. He highlighted that:All of the story beats and big plot points, and settings were all created by Matt Mercer, and he basically handed off his outline and all of his notes to Joey. The two of them executed on the story, fleshed out the locations and created the monster bestiary with their freelance writers. All of that was just dropped on my desk and they basically said, "Here, make this into a book please." [...] In a Wizards of the Coast adventure, we do focus on character to an extent. [...] But in a Critical Role adventure, I think you expect even more depth and more interaction between characters. So, a great deal of the writing of this product was focused on character development.The book's cover art, by artist Minttu Hynninen, features the five characters of the rival party. On the inclusion of rival adventurers in the module, Mercer said, "I love the idea that the party has the realization that they're not the only adventurers out there. Suddenly they understand that if they aren't going to step up and answer the call of fate and they wait too long, somebody else is going to grab the opportunity. [...] Are you going to try and one-up your rivals, stop them in their tracks, or make friends with them? There are lots of different ways to play out this narrative". Christian Hoffer, for ComicBook.com, highlighted that the rival adventuring party "will level up as the players do, with them gaining new abilities and changing to match the player characters as they progress through the adventure. This is a new-ish mechanic to D&D 5E, although Strixhaven: A Curriculum of Chaos featured NPC statblocks that could be used in a similar fashion as Strixhaven students progressed through their four years of college".
Critical Role is an American web series in which a group of professional voice actors play Dungeons & Dragons with Mercer as the Dungeon Master and creator of the world Exandria. A number of licensed works based on the show have been created, such as the Critical Role: Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting (2017) and The Legend of Vox Machina (2022).
Explorer's Guide to Wildemount (2020) is a sourcebook that details the continent of Wildemount from the Critical Role campaign setting for the 5th edition of the Dungeons & Dragons. Unlike the Critical Role: Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting, this sourcebook is considered "official" Dungeons & Dragons material since it was published by Wizards of the Coast. Wildemount was designed with an Eastern European influence – specifically, the Dwendalian Empire was inspired by 15th century Russia and Prussia, Xhorhas by 13th-century Romania, and the edges by 14th-century Spain.
Both Call of the Netherdeep and Explorer's Guide to Wildemount were adapted for play in the D&D Adventurers League upon the release of the Call of the Netherdeep. In March 2022, Wizards of the Coast licensee Baldman Games began running
Source: Critical Role: Call of the Netherdeep (CC BY-SA)
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