D&D: Matt Mercer Talks Adventure, Story, And Rivals In Call Of The Netherdeep Preview
In a new Call of the Netherdeep preview, Matt Mercer gives us all a look at how you will shape the story of Critical Role: Call of the Netherdeep.
Matt Mercer, Chris Perkins, and Makenzie De Armas sat down to preview Critical Role: Call of the Netherdeep. Call of the Netherdeep is the upcoming March adventure book from WotC. It takes place all over the world of Exandria, but as you’ll see there are some specifics that lie in store that make this adventure stand out.
Call of the Netherdeep Preview – Fantastic Locations, Rival NPCs
One of the big selling points of the book is that the adventure wants to emulate the gameplay of Critical Role. In the interview, both Mercer and Perkins talk about the story and how players should influence it. They reveal some of the tricks they use to evoke that style in the adventure book.
Chief among them are the fantastic locations of Marquet and Wildemount that feature in Call of the Netherdeep. In the preview, Mercer showed off some of the locations we can expect to see, including the spired city of Jrusar and Jigow, a town of orcs and goblins and ogres.
But, the Netherdeep is more than that. Monsters like the slithering bloodfin (previewed earlier) reveal an underwater adventure. Perkins confirmed this, talking about how delightful it was to get to play with an underwater adventure.
But in addition to fantastic locations, the NPCs are a highlight from this Call of the Netherdeep preview. We’ve already seen some of the Rival NPC stat blocks. But Mercer got to go into better detail. He described the rival adventuring party as a sort of “ticking clock” that players can race against.
The rest of the team on the book talked about how they hoped the party will allow them to emulate the story and character-driven gameplay of Critical Role.
To that end, we can expect NPCs with dimensions and wants. These are the primary drives of the adventure. It’s not a big overarching plot, so much as characters who want things. The Rival NPCs have their own goals as a group–and individually.
Players can expect to change their relationship. Their personalities and interactions might lead the players to become friends, enemies, banter-filled rivals you love to hate–the options are open!
But even the central figure of the adventure, the entity issuing the Call from the Netherdeep has its own wants. And the adventure is discovering what those wants are.
The City of Jigow
We also got a look at the starting town, Jigow. This is featured in Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount, but in a nutshell it’s a coastal fishing town in Xhorhas. It’s home to people “traditionally considered monstrous” like orcs and goblins and ogres. These are the bulk of the NPCs players will first meet.
They’ll have a chance to engage in competition. Another nod to Critical Role. Any fan of the series knows that Mercer loves to have players play games within games. Minigames like sports contests or perhaps a fishing competition will be the order of the day.
Learn more about Call of the Netherdeep
Happy Adventuring!
