Welcome, Campers!

Welcome, Campers!
"Welcome, Campers!" (WWx01) thumbnail featuring Marisha Ray, Aleks Le, Libe Barer, Sam Riegel, Brennan Lee Mulligan, Eden Riegel and Ashley Johnson.
Episode	Wildemount Wildlings,​ Episode 01 (WW1E01)
Airdate	2025-04-03 18:00 PDT
Running time	2:48:43
Episode link	VOD
Transcript	Transcript
Starring
Libe Barer – Jessep Nimblethorp Ashley Johnson – Yasha Nydoorin Aleks Le – Kai Brennan Lee Mulligan – Padmund Pondhop Marisha Ray – Beauregard Lionett Eden Riegel – Skullcrusher "Sky" Bloodforge and Sam Riegel as the Dungeon Master
Special Guest(s)
Kestrel Riegel Maximus Riegel Ronin Willingham
Order
Next	"Into the Wilde" (WWx02)
Airdate Order
Previous	"Wrap Up: Campaign 3 and the Era of Reclamation" (Sx94)
Next	"Into the Wilde" (WWx02)

"Welcome, Campers!" (WWx01) is the first episode of Wildemount Wildlings, a three-part miniseries by Critical Role featuring Beauregard Lionett and Yasha Nydoorin as the camp counselors for four misfit and underperforming campers in Veth Brenatto's summer camp near Nicodranas. It's the last day at Veth Brenatto's adventure camp, but with four campers lacking merit badges, Veth calls in a couple of friends to teach some camp spirit...

Synopsis

Announcements

• Sam Riegel welcomes everyone to Wildemount Wildlings and turns it over to Marisha and Ashley for the sponsorship of tonight's episode, NordVPN. Unfortunately, the only copy of Nordverse: The ReVerse, their cyberpunk girl boss action romp show starring CryptonicOverride and Gale469, has been destroyed by an accidental soft drink spill, so instead Marisha and Ashley present a portion of the script of their new pilot, Camp Nord.
• Merch alert! Ashley channels Laura for the merch promo-- a Vax'ildan sleeveless hooded cardigan.
• UniVersus has released two new Critical Role starter decks featuring Percy and Beau.
• To celebrate ten years of Critical Role, Quest's End Whiskey is releasing a real-life version of "Courage", the fortifying beverage Percy consumed on his first night with Vex'ahlia.

Introduction

Prior to recording the episodes, Sam held a focus group session to gather ideas for monsters, traps, potions, and weapons with a group of children: Kestrel, Greta, Maximus, Allyn, Marlowe, Penny, and Ronin. Their first assignment was to come up with the first monster the party will face. The group suggested a large flying pig with talons, multiple legs bearing chicken and cat feet, four rows of teeth and a prehensile tongue that allows it to store prey inside its mouth, shooting acid sparkles from its eyes, and that leaves you dumbfounded with depression. It emits a sound like the sizzle of bacon and its name is Gub Gub.

Gameplay

Fan art of Padmund admiring Yasha and Beau, by Elaine Tipping.

It's Advancement Day at the Wildemount Wildlings Camp for Adventuring Kids and most of the lowest ranked campers are ready to be promoted, except for Jessep Nimblethorp, Kai, Padmund Pondhop, and Skullcrusher "Sky" Bloodforge, who have somehow all failed to earn even a single merit badge. As the rest of the campers head out for their celebration on the Do Not Hike Trail, these four stay behind where Camp Director Veth Brenatto tells them that two guest counselors are here to help them to redeem themselves: Beauregard Lionett and Yasha Nydoorin. The campers each share a little bit about themselves before Veth explains that their last chance to stay and not be expelled in disgrace is to earn at least one merit badge that day.

As the group heads out for the training grounds, Veth hangs behind a little with Beau and Yasha, explaining that these kids are losers. Unfortunately, Padmund overhears this description and becomes very disheartened. Beau and Yasha tell Veth that they're there trying to decide if they're ready to have kids of their own, and aren't sure they can do this. When they reach the training grounds, Veth tells the campers that Beau and Yasha will set them several challenges, and if they succeed, they'll be awarded with a badge. At the training grounds, Beau explains the first challenge: to knock a pine cone from her hands. Before they begin, the camp cleric Beth Greenbloom runs in with potions that Caleb Widogast has prepared, that will de-level Yasha and Beau from 20th to 3rd level for 24 hours. Reluctantly, they down the potions and Beau takes up position in the middle of the bridge.

Fan art of Sky going for the pine cone, by iwilltryalittlearter.

Kai goes first, succeeding in snatching the pine cone acrobatically, but Jessep's stress level is growing, and although the birds summoned by her Infestation spell succeed in knocking the cone loose, Beau snatches it before Jessep can. Her Charm Person spell then fizzles due to her nerves, causing wild magic to force her to shout when she speaks. Beau and Yasha trade places, and Sky goes next. She first creates a Minor Illusion that Yasha sees through immediately, but then manages to simply grab it away through sheer force and the use of sticky gum on her hand. Lastly, Padmund spends 10 minutes ritually casting Identify (learning nothing helpful about the pine cone), then spends 10 minutes ritually casting Find Familiar (summoning a frog with a full head of hair and human teeth named Archibald), then spends 10 minutes ritually casting Unseen Servant, then casts Gust, failing to blow the pine cone from Yasha's hand. He then challenges her to arm wrestle for it. She accepts, setting the cone down in order to do so, but the poison on his skin gives her disadvantage, his familiar gives him advantage, and the Unseen Servant grabs the pine cone while Padmund wins the arm wrestling match with his 21 strength. Yasha leaps for it but the servant gets away, and Padmund has a win.

Yasha sets the campers their next challenge: a tug of war (renamed "Pull of Peace") with the campers vs Beau and Yasha. As they talk, Kai slips the frog familiar Archibald a dagger, which Beau spots and confiscates. She promises to give it back to Kai if they're victorious in the tug of war. Meanwhile, Archibald uses it to carve a heart on a tree, enclosing his and Padmund's initials. Counselor Luc Brenatto imposes a time limit on the contest, to control Padmund's ritual casting.

Yasha pulls hard on the rope, but Beau fails to damage any of the campers by flailing it at them, and Padmund does well at pulling as well. Sky's Grease spell goes awry, however, penalizing her own team. Kai attempts to disguise himself before swinging under the bridge on his whip, finding himself just dangling there. Jessep's Mage Hand fails to tickle Yasha, who gives another mighty yank on the rope. Padmund, for the first time in his life, casts a non-ritual spell for Floating Disc and then ties the rope around it as a non-movable object, but Beau strolls across the taut rope, bouncing on their heads as she goes, distracting them. Padmund is very intimidated by this, attempting to forfeit the match, and Sky hugs him in an attempt to cheer him up, poisoning herself. Kai begins crying for help from below the bridge (totally faking it), awakening the maternal instincts of Beau and Yasha who abandon the rope to come to his aid, and Jessep (entirely unopposed) succeeds in dragging the rope back 10 feet and winning the contest.

Kai proudly reveals he was faking it the whole time, and Beau uses her staff to knock him down. Sky and Jessep reveal their private cheering chant, and Padmund depressedly says it would have cheered him up. He shares that he overheard Veth call them all losers and he thinks she's right... at least about him. Sky and Jessep tell him how impressed they've been with his magic but Padmund is unconvinced. Watching this, Beau and Yasha both notice the group is starting to believe in themselves. Maybe they can do this "mom" thing. Beau tries to give them all an inspirational speech to believe in each other and themselves, with mixed success.

Luc tells them the last challenge is "Hide and Seek": Yasha will hide, and the group has until curfew to find her. If they succeed, they'll get their merit badges and be allowed to stay. Beth the cleric/counselor hurries over, healing them all and restoring their spell slots to full while shutting down Luc's compliments by calling him "a wonderful friend". The campers count to 669 while Yasha hides, but she hears banging and a hiss coming from one of the empty cabins before a puff of grey smoke shoots out in her face, followed by Yeza Brenatto. He explains he's working on a re-nebriation elixir (to cure drunkenness) but it's not done yet and currently has the opposite effect. Yasha indeed feels funny (and all her skill checks and saves will be at disadvantage for an hour), but she continues on to try to hide.

Fan art of Archibald's last moments, by SuzySnoo.

Meanwhile, the campers have just about finished counting, and Padmund takes the chance to ritual cast Unseen Servant while they do. They split into teams (Kai with Padmund, Jessep with Sky) and the boys head to the admin cabin. Beau runs to the top of the Curfew Creature Tower so she can keep an eye on things, but the creature politely asks her to go elsewhere... unless Beau pays with something shiny. 50 silver covers it. Jessep has a scroll which she uses to cast Fly on herself and Sky for one minute, and from above, they spot Yasha hiding in the supply shed. While they fly there, Kai and Padmund notice them but continue to the admin building, where Kai breaks a window by throwing Archibald the frog familiar through it, killing him as he muses on life's brevity. After Kai apologizes (and Beau starts toward them), Padmund Mends the window behind them and they start searching through the files inside.

As Jessep and Sky reach Yasha, they hear a mysterious "gub-gub-gub" sound approaching, and a 14 foot tall winged pig with four rows of teeth and eight legs (some with chicken feet and some with cat feet) soars in, landing with a thud. It seizes Yasha in its talons and swallows her, to the campers' horror. Beau runs in, looking for them, and sees the creature although not in time to see Yasha inside its mouth. Sky casts Hideous Laughter but the creature resists it. Beau manages to evade its tongue attack twice, urging Sky and Jessep to go find the others while she attacks with her bo stick. As the creature howls in pain, Beau sees Yasha in its mouth. Jessep manages to hit it with a Sorcerous Burst but the creature sucks Beau in with its tongue, then emits a blast of smoke that causes both Jessep and Sky to be overcome by crippling depression, freezing them in place. The creature stalks off into the woods, with Beau and Yasha inside its mouth becoming increasingly depressed themselves at their failures and weakness. Padmund and Kai, meanwhile, have read the files on themselves inside the admin building and are also depressed. The only things uniting them all are their love for the camp, their desire to prove their worth, and currently, deep depression.

Featured characters

Player characters

• Beauregard Lionett
• Jessep Nimblethorp
• Kai
• Padmund Pondhop
  • Archibald, Padmund's familiar (played by Sam)
• Skullcrusher "Sky" Bloodforge
• Yasha Nydoorin

New

• Beth Greenbloom, counselor and resident cleric
• Drok Winterforge, a tall, jocky, jerk of a camper
• Mishi, the Curfew Creature
• Phyllis, the lunch lady

Returning

• Luc Brenatto
• Veth Brenatto
• Yeza Brenatto

Mentioned

• Caleb Widogast

Quotations

Fan art of the campers, by Julia Stark.

• Beau: The point is, if you want to be an adventurer, if you want to be a hero, it doesn't even have to be an adventurer, but you got to be able to take care of yourself, okay? It's a cruel world out there, all right? If someone comes up to you, tries to bully you, what are you going to do?
  Padmund: Run away.
• Beau: (to the campers) You're at rock bottom, okay? And you know what? Rock bottom's a good place to be. You can only go up, right?
  Padmund: Theoretically you could also move laterally to a different area of rock bottom.
  Jessep: Also, if the rocks slip, then you can fall between the rocks.
  Beau: It's going to go back to being a rhetorical question, okay?
• Padmund: (ritually casting a spell) By the nine secret algaes of the great pond of shadows, by the lily pad of the north wind whose rippling leaf cascades over--
• Padmund: (watching his teammates' misfires) Did I misunderstand the objective?
• Yasha: (from inside the giant pig) Hello?
  Beau: What are you doing in there?
  Yasha: I dunno, I was just drawing and then it ate me!
  Beau: Did you choose to hide inside a pig?
  Yasha: No! That's a good idea, but I did not.
• Padmund: (watching Kai search for interesting documents in the admin building) Did I misunderstand the objective of the current activity?

Trivia

• The events of this miniseries take place during Sydenstar, or late summer, almost certainly in 844 PD.
• Sam's introductory solemn intonation of the word "Pudding" echoes Brennan Lee Mulligan's introduction of the Exandria Unlimited: Calamity miniseries with the word "Fire." Matthew Mercer and Aabria Iyengar later both also borrowed this method of starting a game.
• Since Sam Riegel was DMing, he didn't have a flask, but his sister Eden picked up the baton with a canteen reading, "Flask gags are mine now. HA!"
• Aleks Le drew Padmund and his familiar together in the table, just as his character had done.

References

Art: