The half-elf twins of Vox Machina have their story told.
Creative Staff
Written by: Marieke Nijkamp
Cover Art: Nikki Dawes
Endpaper Map: Andrew Law
What They Say
Vex and Vax have always been outsiders. A harsh childhood in the elite elven city of Syngorn quickly taught them not to rely on others. Now, freed from the expectations of their exacting father and the scornful eyes of Syngorn’s elves, the cunning hunter and the conning thief have made their own way in the world of Exandria.
The twins have traveled far and experienced great hardship. But with the help of Vex’s quick wit and Vax’s quicker dagger, they’ve always kept ahead of trouble. Now, unknown perils await them in the bustling city of Westruun, where the twins become entangled in a web spun by the thieves’ guild known to many as the Clasp. Trapped by a hasty deal, Vex and Vax (along with Vex’s faithful bear companion, Trinket) set out into the wilds to fulfill their debt to the infamous crime syndicate.
As the situation grows more complicated than they ever could have imagined, for the first time Vex and Vax find themselves on opposite sides of a conflict that threatens the home they have carried with each other for years.
Written by #1 New York Times bestselling author Marieke Nijkamp, Critical Role: Vox Machina—Kith & Kin follows a brand-new adventure that delves into the twin’s unexplored history, and returns to some of the iconic moments that forged Vox Machina’s most unbreakable bond.
Content:
When Critical Role began streaming on the internet, the beginning of the tale was missing. It was told in home games around a kitchen table, and we listeners and viewers missed out on that original character and world-building. Over time bits and pieces of the character’s backstories emerged, often changing slightly with each retelling. However, once upon a time every single character was a cipher. Vex and Vax came across as haughty assholes, and it took quite a bit of time for that opinion to change. Even in the context of this novel we still get a bit of that at the beginning, but quickly that all begins to change.
There are two types of sibling relationships. The first is the one where you’re not sure which person is going to come out of it alive if both don’t kill each other first. The second is where the two are inseparable and would easily kill whoever dared harm a hair on the other’s head. Vex and Vax belong to the latter category, and while that connection can occasionally be strained, it is the rock on which everything else in their lives is built upon.
Part mystery, part adventure, the story told features a crime syndicate, a cursed mining town, and two warring factions locked in a deadly struggle. The conflict is escalated when the twins are split-up and forced to take opposite sides in the struggle. Real motives are hidden and neither side is going to tell the two strangers the truth. Do you side with the old miners who are being blamed for the undead plague, or the ruthless leader of the town who is relentless in hunting down the folks she forced from their home? Every other chapter jumps back into the past and shows how Vex and Vax were raised. Their journey from a loving home in a backwater town to the height of Exandrian elvish culture and back to nobodies makes it easy to sympathize with their lives.
Nijkamp effortlessly works with the setting to describe a world where all gender identities and sexual orientations are accepted. The casual flirting of the twins with whomever they fancy (both of whom are canonically bisexual, although it’s easy to forget later on in their stories) is just how things are. Several characters met along the way simply have no gendered pronouns. From dwarves to half-giants the bloodlines of Exandria stray from the old-fashioned, hard-coded stereotypes of good and evil races. That doesn’t mean that racism is a thing unknown in the land, as the two half-elves learn their pure-blooded father and his culture look down with disdain and disgust at his mixed-race children. It’s as much a driving force in their internal conflict as anything else in the plot.
This novel works well as a stand-alone adventure, and no, you don’t need prior knowledge of anything Critical Role to dive in. Even though it tells a closed story it slides into the setting and timeline easily. Fans of the first campaign are going to recognize some places and other details, which aren’t just pointless fanservice but woven into the narrative naturally.
Critical Role has branched out to telling additional stories in comic form, for the most part, and my complaint about that medium is that it’s far too cramped for the stories they want to tell. It should come as no surprise that a novel provides a better frame. Although, there are plenty of places in this novel where the narrative could have been even tighter and less meandering.
Another thing that works in the novel’s favor is having an already proven author and fan write the story. Nijkamp has a brisk and clean writing style combined with a deep understanding of the source material. They’re able to capture the voices of the characters and the qualities of the setting in a very natural way that is instantly familiar with fans of the show and without needing a glossary for newcomers. (Although we’re lacking a glossary, we do get a very pretty map of central Tal’Dorei.)
In Summary
Kith and Kin is a strong favorite for the best side-content created for Critical Role. Vox Machina started with these characters already in place and we never did learn immediately where Vex and Vax were coming from or why they acted the way they did. Not only does this novel provide a solid mystery for readers, but it also fills in all the missing pieces of the twins and their past. It puts into context Vax’s issues with authority and Vex’s penny-pinching, as well as their standoffish attitudes with the people they meet later. As a stand-alone story, it works well as an introduction for Critical Role as a whole, giving a fantasy and D&D-loving reader a good introduction to what makes the Exandria setting stand out from its peers. Much like a tabletop campaign, the story isn’t perfectly neat and orderly, there are a few leaps in logic and lucky rolls of the dice from a narrative perspective, but the end result is a good adventure that is satisfying, light, and enjoyable to read.
Grade: A –
Released By: Del Rey
Release Date: November 30, 2021
MSRP: US $28.00/CN $37.00
