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 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.
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
taako
a wizard-turned-celebrity chef.
merle
a cleric of pan.
the director
killian
carey
angus
the world's greatest detective. he first appears in murder on the rockport limited, but continues to show up, offering his assistance to the bureau.
kravitz
an emissary of death.
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 girlfriend, 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 another mystery on their hands-- a murder mystery! 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 a mostly-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.