Title: Toylight
GM: Brennan Lee Mulligan
Players: Emily Axford (she/her) as Tiddlywinks (a.k.a. Cutie Pie) (he/him). Siobhan Thompson (she/her) as Constance (she/her). Lou Wilson (he/him) as Wyon (he/him). Brian Murphy (he/him) as Ol’ Clyde Horsey (he/him). Zac Oyama (he/him) as Avery Augustus Archibald Tinsley (he/him) Ally Beardsley (they/them) as Calypso (she/her).
Streaming Service: Dropout
With no hope for truce, the Wyon and Calypso end their parley. The Underlord has no intention of backing down, and from the darkness of his shadow, the Dark Prince of Ratkin appears, making a jab at Wyon’s eye. Undaunted, Wyon proclaims that he intends to make the prince’s sword a gift for Aubrey, restating his loyalty to his boy.
Back beneath the light of the nursery, the Toys gather. Calling a meeting in Easton, Cutie Pie addresses Adelaide’s toys. While he is honest with them about the fight coming being life or death, he underlines that this is a war for Adelaide’s life. Their love for Adelaide carries them to a frenzy, and with that our players prepare for war.
Our Intrepid Heroes leap into battle. Calypso leaps into action, leaping on and off the train as she hides from sight. Wyon and Tinsley compete to slaughter the most dust bunnies.
Cutie Pie faces down a buzzing hoard of flies, holding to taunt after Emily realized halfway through it was melee only, but despite her ire at the mistake, Cutie Pie absolutely nails his first attack, landing every blow.
As the Honor Guard surges up their siege ladder, Clyde knocks him back, slowing him, but while he doesn’t send the ratkin off the roof or kill them, he keeps them at bay long enough for the thimbles to rise, working to keep the ratkin back.
Mold rises up. They spread poisonous fumes across the gateway, pushing forward from the dark. Behind them, the dust bunnies race into action.
As the odds start to grow tenser, Constance brings down a cylinder of acid rain, overwhelming the ratkin that have climbed toward the Toylight. Despite their bet, Wyon and Tinsley work in tandem, slaughtering dust bunnies and mold ghasts alike.
Unfortunately, in their fervor for battle, the the group leaves an opening, and desperation sends the enemy forward, slaughtering two of the thimbles before anyone can react. Furious, Cutie Pie uses his flame bellows, charring the ratkin and sending them fleeing.
Out in the woods, a spider-infested teddy bear awakens, but we’re left only to wonder at what it will do as this week’s episode ends.
Highlights
Though introduced as an Eeyore type character, Ratty’s adorable design could hide a more surprising and sinister truth. Then again, he has memories of being played with, and the other toys of the nursery are used to him, so it’s likely a long shot, and instead, he’s more likely meant to show not all rats are evil when one of the main enemy fraction is the ratkin.
Either way, imagining the ratkin as the Goblin Court from A Court of Fey & Flowers definitely and leaning on the goblin-esque description definitely led to some strange mental images that the Art Department’s ratkin designs didn’t help to fight back.
Final Score (5 out of 5 Stars)
One of the many wonderful things about Dimension 20 is that the different GMs/DMs learn from each other. Brennan and Aabria especially seem to work back and forth to see who can push the art team that bit further, and in only three episodes, we’ve seen how Matt Mercer’s time in the Crown of Candy universe alongside Aabria body horror in Burrow’s End fed into this season.
I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that some of the mold characters took inspiration from those we saw in the Ravening War, and that spider-infested teddy bear felt like an homage to the chipmunk infested bear that Aabria turned into a battle map.
Siobhan is a constant win. She’s killing it as a possessed, horrifying doll, and I’m excited to see how the spider-infested bear will feed into things, especially as there was another yarn doll in the background that could be drawn into the Snuffer’s Crusade.
As always, Emily has researched and done the work to make Cutie Pie a powerhouse, and she’s using every weapon and skill to the utmost. With the whole group locked in, we’re in for a treat of a season, and I can’t wait to find out what will happen next.
Let us know what you thought in comments below or go over to our Discord channel to join the conversation.
Featured Image: Dimension 20
The Boss Rush Podcast: The Flagship Podcast of Boss Rush Media and the Boss Rush Network
The Boss Rush Podcast – The Boss Rush Podcast is the flagship podcast of Boss Rush Media and the Boss Rush Network. Each week, Corey, Stephanie, LeRon, and their friends from around the internet come together with other creators, developers, and industry veterans to talk about games they’ve been playing, discuss video game and entertainment based topics, and answer questions solicited on social media and the community Discord.
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