Welcome to your first day of school…
The third season of The Adventure Zone, which sees the podcast return to Dungeons & Dragons. This is also the first major campaign to have a DM other than Griffin, with Travis running the game.
In the world of Nua, heroism and villainy aren't seen as moral and ethical codes, but as professions drawing notoriety and revenue to locales. As such, all heroes and villains require training and accreditation to ensure proper business conduct and minimize collateral damage. This is where Hieronymous Wiggenstaff's School for Heroism and Villainy comes in: an academy dedicated to training the best and brightest to harness their natural gifts on their rise to fame… or fall into infamy.
Of course, not everyone is cut out to be a hero or villain, and there is a lot of logistical support that goes into these careers that heroes and villains simply don't have the time or skill for. And this is where the Sidekick and Henchperson's Annex comes in: a specialized section of the school run by Hieronymous's brother Higglemas to train the support staff of the heroes and villains on how to negotiate deals, take the fall, and balance the books—with a bit of town-saving or princess-kidnapping of their own on the side.
Our player characters are Sir Fitzroy Maplecourt (Griffin), a half-elf barbarian nobleman desperately clinging to dreams of knighthood despite his recent expulsion from his last school; Argo Keen (Clint), a water genasi rogue looking for a cushy gig after a years as a sailor; and a nameless firbolg druid (Justin) with no social graces, but a knack for the natural world. The season premiered on October 31, 2019, with the finale airing on April 15, 2021.
This podcast contains these tropes:
- Academy of Adventure: The eponymous school is this in spades, with classes on battle tactics, magic, persuasive arts, and accounting!
- Added Alliterative Appeal: Technically it's assonance, but "Clyde Nite's Night Knight School" certainly rolls off the tongue.
- Bad Powers, Good People/Good Powers, Bad People: As outlined under Kayfabe below, someone's personal morality has nothing to do with whether they're a hero or a villain; it's instead dictated by their skillset. Rainer, for example, is incredibly friendly and cheerful, but since she's a necromancer she's on the villain track.
- Big Damn Heroes: The Thunderman are able to escape a horde of apparently infinite demons thanks to the intervention of Althea Song, Barb, and pegasi.
- Brick Joke: In episode 10, the Firbolg tells a rather underwhelming joke about a seed, but reassures everyone that they will get it in time. Cut to the end of the episode, and Argo suddenly bursts into hysterical laughter as he finally gets the joke.
- Catchphrase: Travis's very particular intonation of "Okay..." which carries across to almost every character who interact with the Thundermen for any length of time.
- Courtroom Episode: Episode 21, "Open and Shut." Though the Unbroken Chain members presiding make sure to point out that this is a tribunal rather than a trial; the latter is a public matter of finding justice, while they are there simply to come to a decision on what they should do with Argo, Fitzroy, and the Firbolg.
- Covert Group: The Unbroken Chain, who are dedicated to "doing what needs to be done" and are primarily represented in the story by Jackle, the sneakery teacher (although other faculty members are part of it as well). Argo agrees to join after learning that his mother was a part of it.
- Fantasy Counterpart Appliance: The Garrys, a series of gargoyles spread throughout the school that communicate with one another telepathically. They're treated as various types of smart devices and generally function like the internet of things in real life, except that they're sentient and have independent (but identical) personalities. As the series goes on, jokes abound, their canonicity unclear, about buying things on "G-Bay" or looking up information on the "dark Gary".
- Forbidden Fruit:
- Discussed; when Groundsy tells the party never to enter his hut, Fitzroy points out that he wasn't interested in it until Groundsy expressly forbade it.
- This is done in a more literal way when the trio are sent to mediate a dispute between two centaur herds trying to claim the same magic apple (which neither of them actually eat).
- Gratuitous Latin: The school crest includes a Latin motto, as seen in the page image. It roughlynote translates to "Heroes, Villains, and the Rest".
- Hero Academy: Th school's mision is to turn out heroes and villains who will mediate disputes across Nua whilst putting on a lucrative show for the populace to enjoy, a practice that has replaced open warfare but comes with its own drawbacks. (Notably, much more emphasis is placed on the financial obligations of heroes and villains than people's actual welfare.)
- Kayfabe: In this world, heroism and villainy are divorced from moral concepts. They are jobs. Heroes are faces who "defend" a town or kingdom from the villainous heels who seek to "destroy" it. It's semi-staged, and a lucrative job if done right. Training to do it right is, of course, the point of the school. Anyone who actually breaks the rules is labelled "evil" and forbidden from earning wages as a hero or a villain. Since this doesn't bar them from earning wages teaching other people to do the same job, many "evil" heroes and villains go on to teach at Wiggenstaff's.
- Mundane Made Awesome: Of all things, accounting is literally viewed as a cornerstone in the world of heroism and villainy, easily being the most important skill to learn. The class is ecstatic to learn about it in Episode 2 and breaks into uproarious applause after a long speech.
- My God, You Are Serious!: Travis' reaction when he realizes his players need him to create a lawyer NPC because they are actually going with the "subpoena the Xorn" plan.
- Mythology Gag: Several to My Brother, My Brother and Me:
- Travis' voice for Festo is basically his impression of Amélie from the other podcast.
- Griffin's voice and personality for Fitzroy is very similar to his "little boy cakes and creams" character that he breaks out on his birthdays, though it turns out that some of this behavior is an affectation in-universe.
- When Festo creates a familiar for Fitzroy, he exclaims that "It's a familiar! But not too familiar!" which also becomes the title of the episode. This is a reference to the other podcast's theme song at the time of their recording.
- Nature Spirit: The Spirit of the Scarlet Woods to whom the centaurs of the same location sacrifice one of the magical apples to each year. When the Firbolg speaks to it in order to find out if it will accept something else, it answers in the affirmative—what it wants is to be given something that the person making the sacrifice values. Such as the Firbolg's secret.
- Oh, Crap!: Master Firbolg has a big one at the end of Ep. 12 when he realizes the bug Althea Song gave him just recorded the entire secret meeting with Higglemas Wiggenstaff
- Pun-Based Title: The arc titled "Mission: Imp Hospital" (about a hospital infested with imps that the Thunderman are commissioned to clear out). Travis admitted he basically came up with the title first.
- Punch-Clock Villain: and heroes, too. In this setting "heroes" and "villains" are paid employees and assigned in pairs to different towns as a tourist attraction. Plenty of heroes are jerks and plenty of villains are kind souls; the assignments are based more on powers and image than personality. Villains are allowed to cause property damage and injury, but not death.
- Refuge in Audacity: The Thundermen tend to take this way to complete their missions. For one example, they do actually subpoena a monster. Later on they are tasked with resolving a dispute over an apparently magical apple, and Fitzroy takes a bite out of it in the presence of both parties—and then complains that it's pretty mediocre as apples go. Of course, that isn't the only audacious thing going on during that incident.
- Running Gag: The idiosyncratic way in which the Centaurs of the Scarlet Wood say the phrase "Spirit of the SCARLET WOODS?"
- Shout-Out: Because the concept of this game is based around a magical boarding school, it naturally invites a lot of comparison to Harry Potter, most of which is made as sly Leaning on the Fourth Wall commentary.
- Silly Reason for War: The Thundermen are hired by the Centaurs of the Scarlet Wood and another hero-sidekick pair by the Centaurs of the Valley to mediate a dispute over a magical apple that each herd uses in their annual rituals. Usually the tree bears exactly two each year, but this time it's only given one, and both herds immediately came to the brink of violence.
- Shown Their Work: Based on some of the Firbolg's statements, it's obvious that Justin has been studying accounting and economics in his downtime.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: It turns out that pursuing a career in the type of heroism or villainy that is as spectacular but harmless as cartoons would lead you to believe involves a lot of bureaucracy and accounting to manage collateral damage.
- Take a Third Option: One of the gang's first assignments is to resolve a conflict between miners and management, each of whom blame the other for breaking into a cavern that contained a dangerous Xorn and shutting down operations. Fitzroy, Argo, and Firbolg reason that instead of convincing one side or the other to accept responsibility, they declare the monster to be legally liable. So they issue it a subpoena.
- Uncanny Valley: Invoked by the tree that the centaur herds of the Scarlet Wood and the Valley (respectively) are competing over. Its growth pattern is extremely regular, with no flaws and not even a twig out of place.
- Unconventional Courtroom Tactics: The Thundermen engage in some hijinks during the Unbroken Chain tribunal, despite being informed that they aren't subject to the rights and procedures of a courtroom trial. Fitzroy even puts on a Country Lawyer act at one point and ends his impassioned defense by threatening to blow up the tribunal chamber. It culminates with the three of them being judged worthy to join, whereupon Fitzroy immediately calls a second tribunal on the Commodore for causing the death of Argo's mother.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: Apparently, a lot of students, knowing that Wiggenstaff's is a magical school, assume that it's a lot like Hogwarts and replete with magical features. Gary has had to issue repeated warnings that refuse will not magically disappear if left in the halls, the staircases do not move around pointlessly, and that destroying wall hangings in search of hidden passages will only succeed in vandalizing the school.
