THE ADVENTURE ZONE:
BALANCE
the adventure zone: balance is an actual play, mostly dnd podcast created by the mcelroy family! it features travis as magnus burnsides, justin as the wizard taako, clint as merle highchurch, and griffin as dm. the campaign began in december of 2014 and ended in august of 2017, with 69 episodes to its name, plus various live shows and talkbacks.
originally, it used a premade dnd adventure-- the lost mine of phandelver-- as a base, but it quickly became something much more. magnus, taako, and merle are recruited by an organization called the bureau of balance, where they’re tasked with safely collecting a series of powerful, dangerous magical items, called the grand relics. the first six arcs of the show each follow the boys attempting to claim a relic, with one or two episodes of housekeeping and lower-key character work in between.
← art by carey pietsch!
the central characters of the show are, of course, magnus, taako, and merle, but there's a wealth of npcs who impact the story in meaningful ways, too. here, i’ve tried to stick to profiling characters who have a major role to play in more than one arc, disregarding the finale. as much as i love some of the arc-specific characters, it’s better to get to know them in their own arcs, i feel. just as a heads up, this section will contain several spoiler characters. just knowing about them will ruin a few major reveals. if you’re not into that, don’t hover your mouse over the blocked-out text-- that'll unblock it!
magnus
a warrior and carpenter. he's the first to rush into any situation regardless of the danger involved, and he has a special connection to animals. his folksy charm endears him to many of the npcs he meets throughout the story, though his ultimate quest in faerûn is for retribution.
taako
a wizard-turned-celebrity chef. his memories of a childhood spent alone and with nowhere to settle inform a large part of his personality-- a reluctance to let others in. he's often self-centered and somewhat vain, but he's also shown to care deeply about a select few people, although he expresses it in circuitous ways.
merle
a cleric of pan. he's a negotiator and peacemaker, although he also has a propensity for running away from his problems. his philosophy surrounding faith is one of choice-- making the choice to believe even in the presence of doubt. making the choice to live a joyful life even in the presence of despair.
lucretia
the director of the bureau of balance. she presents herself as a level-headed, hyper-competent leader, dedicated to the destruction of the seven grand relics. she's cautious, hesitant to send the reclaimers into danger, but also willing to do what she thinks needs to be done. she makes difficult decisions and deals with the ramifications.
killian
a bureau regulator; her job is to hunt down and eliminate people who have used the grand relics. she's the first bureau member encountered in the show, appearing in here there be gerblins.
carey
a rogue, a bureau regulator, and killian's partner. she strikes up a close friendship with magnus as she teaches him about rogue-ing.
angus
the world's greatest detective. he first appears in murder on the rockport limited, but continues to show up in later arcs, offering his assistance to the bureau.
kravitz
an emissary of the raven queen. he first appears in the crystal kingdom, sent to apprehend the boys, but he strikes up a relationship with taako, and shows up in almost every subsequent arc. by the finale, he and taako are romantically involved.
lup
taako's twin sister. she's a powerful evocation wizard, and created the staff that taako uses for most of the show. she's shown to have a strong moral compass, able to stand up to her own crew for what she believes is right, and willing to go out on her own to fix her mistakes. she spends the majority of the show trapped in taako's staff, all his memories of her erased by lucretia.
barry
the red robed figure that appears to the boys frequently throughout the show. being an undead lich, he can remember things that had been erased, and he's on a mission to find lup, his wife, who he knows to be missing. he's a powerful necromancer, and major nerd in general, but his lich form, which was once kept stable by his bond with lup, begins to go haywire as he loses leads on her whereabouts.
davenport
the captain of the ship called the starblaster. his identity was so caught up in being the ship's captain that when his memories of that time were erased, however carefully, his mind was so shattered that he could rarely say more than his own name.
john
the man who became the hunger, an all-consuming force that wants one thing-- to absorb more and more planar systems until it encompasses all of existence. john is shown to be charismatic, being able to convince his entire plane of existence to become the hunger.
here's an arc-by-arc synopsis of the show! i've tried to stay very general, and provide a nice little description of the premise of each arc, but after a certain point, it becomes impossible without ruining some major reveals. it's still pretty vague, but even a vague description requires talking about the plot twists. i'd recommend experiencing it on your own, but if you want, hover your mouse over the blocked-out text to see the spoilers!
here there be gerblins
the first arc of the podcast follows the lost mine of phandelver adventure, but deviates at the end. magnus, taako, and merle are hired to escort a wagon to the town of phandalin, but they end up entangled in something much larger: their employer is searching for a powerful magical item with immense destructive potential.
moonlighting
moonlighting is the first of the lunar interludes, but it's important enough to necessitate separating it out. the boys are brought to the headquarters of the bureau of balance, where they learn that something's been messing with their memories, and that there are seven "grand relics" that the bureau wants to remove from the world because of their sheer destructive power.
murder on the rockport limited
this arc sees the boys sent to reclaim one of the grand relics from a train. when they get there, though, they find themselves with a murder mystery on their hands! they have to solve it before the train reaches its destination, lest they be implicated for the crime.
petals to the metal
the boys are sent to the city of goldcliff to reclaim another grand relic-- the gaia sash, a belt that allows the user to harness the typhonic power of nature. there, they're roped into an illegal street race, in which victory might promise them the sash.
the crystal kingdom
in this arc, the director gets news of another relic, this one sequestered in the private, floating lab of two of the bureau's scientists. it's the philisopher's stone, a powerful artifact of transmutation, and it's slowly turning the entire lab into pink tourmaline.
the eleventh hour
the boys are sent to a remote, western-style town called refuge to reclaim another grand relic-- the temporal chalice. because the chalice grants its user complete control over the flow of time, refuge is stuck in a bubble where time doesn't function properly.
the suffering game
the boys recieve an invitation to a place called wonderland, a twisted, cyclical realm designed to extract pure suffering from all who venture there. they're promised a prize at the end: the animus bell, one of the last grand relics.
reunion tour
after escaping wonderland, a red robed figure who'd been appearing throughout the show tells the boys that the bureau can't be trusted. he reveals his identity: a lich, and someone they thought had died all the way back in the first arc. he has them bring him to their headquarters to uncover the bureau's-- and the director's-- secrets.
the stolen century
in this arc that deviates from the structure of anything seen on taz before, the boys relive one hundred years of adventuring with the crew of a planar research spaceship called the starblaster. one hundred years they'd been made to forget. it's much more roleplay heavy, with no combat and a decent amount of narration. despite it being different and a little experimental, i think it's one of the most important arcs for the story's themes.
story and song
in the three-part finale, the bureau of balance, the starblaster crew, and the world at large take a final stand against the hunger-- what the starblaster crew had been running from for one hundred years. in a decision between two bad outcomes, they pick the third option: they fight with the story of a century and the song of a bard in their ears.
it would be impossible to talk about the adventure zone: balance without talking about its music. music makes the episodes what they are in the sense of emotional impact, yes, but also thematically, the show wouldn't be the same without it.
starting near the end of petals to the metal with the tracks "battlewagons" and "discovery and recovery," music accompanied some scenes. most of the soundtrack was created by griffin, who released full ost albums for each of the following arcs (with reunion tour, the stolen century, and the finale being consolidated into one album).
my personal favorite album is the soundtrack for the crystal kingdom. i love the way synths were used, conveying both the crystals covering the entire setting and the technology found within. i love the use of vocaloid. the entire album is absolutely gorgeous to me, and i love listening to it.
the soundtrack for the eleventh hour was super impactful when i first was listening to the arc, especially the track "the clock strikes twelve." the music enhanced the narration it was placed over in a way that blew my mind. and of course, i'm always a sucker for western influences.
the sountrack for the suffering game utilizes a lot of garageband loops, which i think works to its benefit. the setting for this arc necessitated something flashy and overproduced, and the music delivered, while still conveying tons of dread and suspense, and including somber, emotional moments.
i barely noticed the music that appeared in the stolen century, and i mean that as a compliment. the tracks blended so well into each of the many locations the arc took place in. they seemed so natural that when they were referred back to in the finale, i kind of went insane.
speaking of the finale, it utilized so many tracks from previous arcs, hearkening back to some of the most memorable moments in the series. and then, of course, i would be remiss to mention what is arguably the most important track in the show, rachel rose mitchell's voidfish: plural. the voidfish is a pivotal character in the show, in more ways than one, and the song that it sings for its child becoming the song that gives the world strength is beautiful. not only that, but that it was also johann's song, the song of a bard who wanted nothing more than to be remembered-- it really gets me.
balance is also in the middle of being adapted into a series of graphic novels! the books are illustrated by carey pietsch, and at the time i'm writing this, they cover everything up to reunion tour.
one thing i love about the graphic novels is actually seeing what's changed between the podcast and the book! i have a personal fascination with what makes a story what it is, (an interest created at least in part by balance,) and while i do mourn the loss of goofs and bits that ended up on the chopping block, i love seeing how things get streamlined and reformatted to fit the flow of a graphic novel.
← me in cosplay at pax unplugged!
i've had a long journey with taz: balance. i started listening to it during my sophomore year of high school, but i didn't make it very far. then, i found the graphic novels, and fell in love with the story. i decided to give the podcast another try in my junior year, but by the time i made it to the suffering game, that book hadn't been released, and i was too nervous to listen without the safety net of having read it first. once i preordered the book the summer after my senior year, though, i got a sudden burst of enthusiasm, and listened to the arc before it arrived. so, i was up to the stolen century, but by that point, i was spending all my time getting ready for college, and i sort of fell off. over winter break my freshman year, i was stuck in my house with nothing to do, so i picked it back up again. i was obsessed, and i'd finished the whole show by the time i started spring semester. it took me almost four years to listen to the whole thing, but i'm so glad i did.
my ultimate favorite character, to the surprise of absolutely nobody who knows me in real life, is taako. a lot of what i love about him is a massive spoiler for the end of the series, but it involves memory-- a motif that i have so much fun playing around with, because it's something that terrifies me. he's a character who has so many simulatneous narratives about what his life is. he believes things about himself that don't end up being true, and that's fascinating to me. my second favorite character, though, is lucretia. if you've finished the series, either that combination makes perfect sense, or you think i'm insane. i love her dearly. she's a complex, flawed charater, sure, but thinking about her mindset and the way it changes throughout canon has me in shambles constantly. she thinks she's above the realtionships she's forged, but she's not. she can't possibly be.
balance is half about narratives and half about relationships. i think what griffin brings to the table is a story about stories-- who tells them, who remembers them, and how they shape us. and i think what travis, justin, and clint bring to the table is a story so powerfully about the bonds between every character that an entire arc, planned for after the suffering game, was derailed. balance would not be what it is without the bonds between not just the player characters, but npcs, too. it wouldn't be what it is without either of those two major themes, of course.
it's truly one of my favorite stories. besides being poignant, the mcelroys are hilarious-- it's a joy to listen to or read. i hope that if you haven't already, you give it a shot!
