Season One: The Heralds of Wayinar

At the creation of this blog article, there are eight (8) episodes that have been uploaded to their free content section on their website and Youtube for your listening and/or watching pleasure. The episodes are about an hour to an hour and 45ish minutes. I personally like these lengths as it makes it easy to stay focused and engaged for that amount of time. It also feels like the correct length when listening to this group as the time provides enough for the action and for the party to get to an ending point for the episode that makes sense. Never once as I was listening did it feel like I was listening for as long as I was. The energy of the group is really good and it helps keep the story going.

When first writing this article I personally listened to the first 5 episodes and was hooked. I have now finished the full first season and eagerly await their second show: Emissaries of the Ancients. Each episode is its own unique ride as you never know what is going to happen. The Heralds of Wayinar is a weekly show that happens Fridays on YouTube. There is also a rebroadcast on Twitch as well. You can find their full schedule here.

When watching you can expect to see video of the voice actors who are talking. There are also some cool maps, sound effects and sometimes visuals to help tell the story. The visual look of the videos are good. Each voice actor has their own character that they portray in this game. Dm Russell narrates and runs The Heralds of Wayinar and also voices an NPC / DM character named Gritzern for the first few episodes. More beloved NPCs arrive later in the season and completely steal my heart as well.

*Skip down to the next section “Thoughts from the Dungeon Fox” if you want to avoid any and all spoilers related to Season One- The Heralds of Wayinar.

Episode 1: Betrayer. We start right in the thick of things as the players come into an interrogation scene. The pacing for this episode is intense and the shadow mist that the party comes across made me intrigued as a dm. There is a lot of darkness and madness that I personally enjoyed in the episode. This is one of the only times you will see/hear the character Sorrel from the released episodes, but it is a really cool druid character with some good moments with animal shape changing. If you want more Sorrel you will need to join the premium content and see him in Emissaries of the Ancients.

Episode 2: Blood Door. Here we lose the player character of Gorrkarraus. This entire episode was built around a puzzle and tensions and emotions were high. To me I very much appreciated the message from Dm Russell E. Welch III at the end that shows how emotionally we DM’s do get when connecting to our players and their characters.

Episode 3: Fall of the Divided. This was one of my favorite episodes due to the in between character banter and RP. Vano with the bunnies, Obi with the ship stuff, Rosara and Amadeus even had some good banter going. The episode also went out with a bang.

Episode 4: The First Answer. Besides starting off with two character deaths; this is where we first hear the mention of “The Heralds of Wayinar” and we get some of the lore that has been driving the players through the first three episodes. I also must say that Russell gives the most amazing npc character monologue that takes place at the beginning of the session, with lots of emotion and it was very impressive. The party gets their first tavern scene that we get to see, and there are a variety of NPC’s the Dm gets to bring to life. There is a bit of civilization in this episode before some chaos erupts leading the party back into the dark woods. At the very end, the cliff hanger is a new player joining the group.

Episode 5: Prime Before the Storm. We get to meet a new player and a new race of this world. This episode is action packed with lots of combat and Rp. The party gets their next group goal and make plans for an adventure. I will say my favorite part of the show is the very very end where Obi and Cendrillion have a conversation. The last statement that Cendrillion makes about fate really hit home and was a very inspirational quote.

Episode 6: Streak of Horror. Starts with a 3 months earlier scene that I enjoyed that was between Dm Russell and some of the players as they first meet. This episode is where the character Obi first meets the character Vano. There is also another PC called Elyiaes that is shown. The scene opens with the first quest of not taking drugs is given to Obi who needs to go search for someone called Vano at this town wide party. This episode has a lot of culture color and character interactions that I enjoyed. It also has my favorite moment of giving a child fireworks brought to us courtesy of Elias. This episode also has a lot of drama as chaos erupts at the party and causes Elias, Obi and Vano to go into action. This episode also features the best use of pork rind butter as a spell component.

Episode 7- Streak of Horror II: Continuing with the memory sequence, this episode was stressful to the end of “Does the DM have a back-up plan if your players died in the past?” Thankfully Russell did not have to answer that as the chaos continued with more of what happened in the streets as the party was broken up by monsters. This episode has excellent monster descriptions, unique transformations and good audio enhancements in post editing. The players had very creative solutions to some very dangerous situations and was a very action/emotion packed listen.

Episode 8- Flames in the Dark. Starting in fire and flame the party flees one possible horror and runs into another. There is some quality tension within the party. The episode ends with a new figure entering the story and causing a new dangerous darkness entering the land. This was deemed a “Rosara episode.”

Episode 9- Fractures: The party decide that they will take Dolben and his daughter up the mountain. We hear a little bit about the Edwind race and the Primes.We learn that Primes do not eat cats. There is also some more about Vano’s backstory that comes to light. Cendrillion and Rosara have a conversation about beliefs as there is some disagreement.

Episode 10- The Storm: This episode has a well placed trigger warning at the beginning of the episode. As the party makes their way up the mountain things don’t go according to plan.

Episode 11- He Who Stalks: The players get captured after dealing with some trauma. Very emotional and the players let us see a little more of their vulnerable side.

Episode 12- Blood Will Fail: We get to see more of the Legionnaires. Obi has a bad deception roll and things look dire for the party. Rosara and Cendrillion have a combated battle of worth. Ends on an epic cliffhanger with the promise of battle.

Episode 13- The Open Eye: So many memes and references as the party has fun with each other during a battle. This was a really great episode to listen to. There is also more Prime time and doors doom the party once again.

Episode 14- Legends Lost: Traps prove tricky for our heroes as they continue deeper into this prime building. There is a lot of tension and stress felt by players and viewers as they try to survive. There are also some great moments around prime and Herald lore.

Episode 15- Into the Dark: This was such a great penultimate episode. More lore and realizations for the party as they go deeper into the prime facility. Starting in chaos and battle, the party quickly tries to retreat with traps becoming problematic. Vorn addresses Azathell for a very interesting conversation. Rosara spends the episode mostly injured and terrible realizations are made.

Episode 16- Chaos The much awaited season finale. This was such a great episode and had such an amazing cliff hanger (literally) that I can't wait for season 2. This had all the action, back story and NPC ties that I could have have hoped for. I am amazed and quite thankful that the episode turned out the way that it did. You'll have to watch it for yourself.