K'Varn Revealed

is the tenth episode of the first chapter of Critical Role. After encountering a menagerie of trouble, Vox Machina looks into a cavern alcove and discovers the veil between planes that K'Varn stepped through to gain entrance to Yug'Voril. Making their way forward, Keyleth performs a Scrying ritual on the being himself, and discovers his true identity...

Pre-Show

 * This is the 10th episode!
 * This will be the last time the character backgrounds run at the start of the show; going forward, they will only be played during the break.
 * The character backstory videos for Grog Strongjaw, Keyleth, Percival de Rolo, Scanlan Shorthalt, Tiberius Stormwind, Vax'ildan, and Vex'ahlia are shown.

Announcements

 * Matt thanks the chat for his new Dungeon Master cloak.
 * T-shirts are still available for another week; the goal is to sell 1000 shirts by the end of tonight's game. If that happens, the cast will stay late for a Q&A session.
 * There will be a giveaway at the 2850 subscribers mark.
 * Viewers are encouraged to donate to the charity 826LA, a non-profit after-school tutoring program for kids K-12th grade.
 * Matt recently played Dungeon Master for PewDiePie and cinnamontoastken on their podcast; that episode is available now.
 * Orion has a Tiberius moment and double checks that the shirts have been announced; they have.
 * Part 2 of the Dread episode on TableTop came out today, in which Laura appears.

Previously on Critical Role
"The party was initially sent on a quest into the mountainous region beneath the dwarven city of Kraghammer to find a folk hero of the region named Lady Kima of Vord, a halfling paladin who had gone missing while on a vision quest that had apparently led her to some evil that was brewing beneath the city.

"As the party went in search of her, they ended up finding themselves climbing deeper, deeper into the Underdark, a very scary portion of the subterranean world, encountering numerous beasts, discovering there was apparently an alliance that had been forged between the illithids—the mind flayers that lived down there—and the duergar, who normally are at odds, have formed some sort of pact. Upon battling their way deeper into the cavernous regions below, the lava-encrusted obsidian walls, they began to uncover a plot that apparently some monstrosity, some new dark leader by the name of K'Varn had been the one responsible for uniting them, and currently resides in a temple in the center of the subterranean illithid city of Yug'Voril.

" [ Vox Machina ] made [their] way down to what seems to be the cavern that contains the island that Yug'Voril resides upon. [They] managed to scavenge a few broken boats from a lake that surrounds the island. Percy repaired them, and [they] rode around the outskirts to what seemed to be some sort of a beachside cavern. Upon entering the cavern, [they] found a partially buried chest or container of some kind, what looks like some sort of a camp that had been destroyed and scattered, and a few rotting corpses against the walls. As [they] continued to inspect the area, the corpses began to rise from their sitting positions. With previous experience in the realm of undead, [they] know the eyes of these creatures carry far more intelligence than your run-of-the-mill zombie."

Part I
The team jumps right into a fight with some undead. Vax'ildan ends up surrounded and takes a few hits, getting paralyzed before the team can jump to his aid, but the fight is over almost before it begins once Tiberius gets involved. What Tiberius doesn't kill, Vex'ahlia does.

While the team tries to recover from the battle they are engaged by a cloaker. As the creature envelopes Tiberius and gets telekinetically thrown from him, the group chooses to retreat to the boat. The cloaker gives chase and the party must battle over water. Scanlan uses a new spell, Bigby's Hand, to grab and hold the cloaker. Vex shoots out one of its eyes, Tiberius telekinetically removes the other, and Vax gets the killing shot. With the cloaker defeated, Percival skins the corpse for its camouflaging hide.

They make their way back to the beach in a different part of the cavern. There, they find a cave filled with magical darkness. Keyleth shifts into an earth elemental to scout the cave, finding that it contains a strange planar rift and a group of grick. Tiberius makes short work of the grick by tossing a bomb crafted by Percy into the room and throwing a fireball on top of it.

Clarota examines the rift, noting that it is mostly likely the portal to the Far Realm through which K'Varn would have come into Yug'Voril. Tiberius sends a message to his brother, Jerahd, asking for any information about K'Varn. While they wait for a response, Keyleth uses Stone Shape to collapse the cave around the rift. Scanlan tries to cast Suggestion on Kima to make her interested in Grog; she resists the spell and warns him firmly not to try it again.

Break

 * Zac presents a Happy 10th Episode cake.
 * The character backgrounds for Pike, Grog, Keyleth, Percy, and Scanlan are shown.
 * Matt notes that they need to sell 100 shirts in the next 45 minutes for the Q&A to happen.

Part II
About 20 minutes after Tiberius contacted his brother, a response arrives. Jerahd's note confirms that they are dealing with an aberration from the Far Realm, but asks for a better description to be able to provide more help.

Keyleth sets up a scrying ritual on the beach to check on K'Varn. The spell shows her a glimpse of the temple at the center of Yug'Voril, where the mindflayers' Elder Brain is housed and imprisoned beneath a suspended brass structure. Around the room, she sees mutilated creatures in cages, a laboratory of sorts. She sees K'Varn himself emerging from the shadows: a fleshy ball with many eyes, metal plates grafted into his skin, wearing a twisted black horn on his brow. The creature seems to see her, and with that, Keyleth is forced out of the vision. She reports what she saw to the others, noting that K'Varn is a beholder.

They cross the lake back to the shore of the island to start getting closer to Yug'Voril. The twins, scouting ahead, find a ruined city made of greenish stone and full of non-Euclidean angles. In a pit in the center of the ruins, they find a recent campsite. The occupant of the campsite returns just then, a towering humanoid. They attempt to retreat just as it catches their scent.

Vox Machina

 * Keyleth
 * Percival de Rolo
 * Scanlan Shorthalt
 * Tiberius Stormwind
 * Grog Strongjaw
 * Pike Trickfoot
 * Trinket
 * Vax'ildan
 * Vex'ahlia

New

 * K'Varn (seen via Scrying)
 * The formorian giant

Returning

 * Clarota
 * Lady Kima of Vord

Mentioned

 * Jerahd

Quotations

 * Liam: "Once we finish this math, this explosion is going to be really cool."