Dimension 20 returns to the world of Calorum with The Ravening War, set twenty years before the events of A Crown of Candy. Following a new group of characters, a combination of royals and those they trust, brought together by a secretive organization, The Fellowship of Destiny’s Architects, for a mysterious task. The season takes place over the course of the Ravening War, with political intrigue, betrayal, and a continent-wide conflict in one of the bloodiest eras of Calorum’s history.
Each season of Dimension 20 tells an original story with new characters in genre-merging adventures. Matt Mercer (Critical Role) returns to the dome, but this time he’s helming the story as Game Master. Long-time Dimension 20 stars Brennan Lee Mulligan, Lou Wilson, Zac Oyama, and Aabria Iyengar serve as players, along with Dimension 20 newcomer Anjali Bhimani (Critical Role EXU).
Screen Rant spoke with Brennan Lee Mulligan about The Ravening War, the new season of Dimension 20. He broke down Matt’s genius, opening the episode with “water,” the FDA joke, and incorporating time jumps to show the gravity of the war. Mulligan also explained the disaster movie structure of Calamity, why he hopes to return to Critical Role, and how Calamity ties into Critical Role Campaign 3. Mulligan kept any talk of an animated adaptation close to the vest, but he did share which seasons he thinks would work best with the medium.
Brennan Lee Mulligan on Dimension 20: The Ravening War
Screen Rant: I love A Crown of Candy! I can’t believe you made me cry about candy. I fully went into that being like, “Candyland Game of Thrones. Cool. This will be fun.” No, and then with The Ravening War? Same thing, man.
Brennan Lee Mulligan: Hey, I don’t know what to tell you. The genesis for it was looking at Candyland, the box. And you’re like, “Look, it’s a little Candy King and a Candy Queen in a Candy Castle.” But then you start to apply adult logic to it. And you’re like, “So Candy Castle was built with candy levies against candy serfs in a candy fiefdom somewhere. You start to sort of put the pieces together. I’m sure you’re well aware, monarchies historically not a super-enlightened form of government. So that’s where it all started. That’s why it has to be brutal and sad. People need to see little gumdrops and M&Ms absolutely murdering each other and ruthless political intrigue.
You were the one who actually asked Matt to DM The Ravening Wars. What was it about your experience on Calamity that made you want to invite him to do a prequel for A Crown of Candy?
Brennan Lee Mulligan: So this had to happen. I feel like, first of all, Matt is an incredibly dear friend. The sweetest dude in the world, happens to be one of the most influential, brilliant, and talented storytellers of all time. I am constantly boggled by the fact that this dude is a pal. He’s a remarkable, remarkable storyteller. Going and doing Calamity was such an incredible gift because, prior to even working at Dropout when I [had] just moved to LA. I was an improv teacher.
I was watching the big finale of Campaign One Critical Role losing my mind. I’m sure it’ll tell you it was nuts! Seeing Scanlon and the ninth-level counterspell. All these moments from that epic finale. What ends up happening is years later, I get contacted by Matt and Travis to go talk and pitch Calamity. Calamity ends up happening and doing this prequel in Exandria, which was so special. Then, at the same time, Matt’s no stranger to Dimension 20. He’s been a player on Escape From The Bloodkeep; he was on Pirates of Leviathan.
And all the while, the basis for A Crown of Candy is Game of Thrones, and in the zeitgeist is House of the Dragon, which is a prequel series to Game of Thrones. So it’s coming from every angle. It’s a reflection of Calamity. It’s a reflection of House of the Dragon, which is itself a reflection of Game of Thrones, which reflects onto A Crowd of Candy, which is the precursor to The Ravening War. It’s perfect. It really was a perfect storm. And then, talking to Matt, when I think of Matt Mercer, I think of a guy who needs to be DMing more. The guy does it so infrequently.
[Laughs] He’s taking breaks all the time. Never busy.
Brennan Lee Mulligan: Constantly taking breaks. He has so few responsibilities and obligations. That was honestly the hardest part of asking Matt because it’s this perfect Zeitgeist-y culmination. It mirrors so many other threads of Calamity and House of the Dragon. I love Matt and the idea of, “Oh, I would love for Matt to come run something in the dome. What setting would be the best?” To think of how epic and fantastical and medieval and dramatic Calorum as a setting is, and you’re like, “Oh, Matt would knock this out of the park.” Because there’s lots of different types of humor.
The humor of A Crown of Candy is to be so silly and then to be as dramatic, sinister, and ominous as possible. Matt killed it. To take something as silly as the pun names of the fellowship of Destiny’s architects from the first episode, the FDA, from the first episode of The Ravening War. Matt nailed this. He’s the best person to take Calorum and do the joke of it, because the joke of it is to do it as seriously and dramatically as possible. He crushed it, and it was perfect.
The one thing I was nervous about was asking him to do it because of his schedule. I didn’t even have to concern that he would say, “Oh, I can’t do it.” My concern was he would go, “Yeah!” And I would be like, “I have condemned by a busy friend to more work.” So it’s very sweet that he did it, and I hope we made it as easy as possible for a guy as busy as him to come into it. And it was such a it was a ball. It was a huge gift.
The FDA reveal at the end? I lost my mind. I was like all of you, just jumping around like, “What?” It was so good. Was that actually part of the lore doc that you sent him or was that something he came up with on his own?
Brennan Lee Mulligan: That is a Matt Mercer original. FDA is a Matt Mercer original. When I saw it, I was like, “Oh, this dude is locked in.” It was so epic, dramatic, and incredible. That first episode, there’s just all these incredibly clever puns, jokes, and things like that. For me, when I went and did Calamity, it felt like such a fun stretch to go, “Oh, this needs to be quite dramatic and tragic. It has to be really sad.” And to stretch into that dramatic space.
So it was such a delight to see the reflection of that, which was Matt being hysterical and really funny. Voices, NPCs, nailing the kind of goofiness where the goofiness needs to happen in A Crown of Candy, and then to also have these intense arch puns everywhere. My heart lit up when I heard FDA. I was like, “This guy fully has the setting in his DNA [and] gets it like nobody [else].” It was great.
I loved when you were referring to them as the Bloominadi, and then he did the FDA reveal. And I was like, Oh, we’re in for a ride.
Brennan Lee Mulligan: We’re in for it. It’s time to strap in. 100%. That was a buckle-up moment, for sure. It was amazing.
You have such a rare opportunity as a creator to let go of the reins and just play in this world you made and still have surprises and everything. What is that experience like?
Brennan Lee Mulligan: Incredible. I’ve been running games, writing LARPs, and telling stories for basically my whole life. I’ve gotten chances to play in the past, but to make something and then play in it. To watch ideas of yours. It’s really special. I kind of don’t know how to put it into words. It’s like there’s a certain piece of a thing that you’ve had to be the steward [of] forever, and you’re the one person who’s like adding sticks to the fire. Okay, I’ve gotta build the next dungeon and plan the next encounter, and then suddenly someone comes and lays another stick on the fire, and it gets brighter, and you go [gasp].
It’s a sense of relief, wonder, and excitement. Being a DM, you’re not lonely at the table, but when you’re doing your little prep work, it can be a little bit lonely. So I think, to have those meetings with Matt and talk about the lore and everything else like that. It’s just watching a brilliant mind choose, with its limited time on this earth, [to] come in and honor something you’ve made. It’s just a feeling of joy and gratitude. I don’t really know how to put it into words.
I feel like that’s the dream of the storyteller: to be able to just fully immerse yourself in what you’ve created.
Brennan Lee Mulligan: It’s a gift to watch it happen in real time. Sherlock Holmes is written by Arthur Conan Doyle; how many people have written a Sherlock story? Everyone today [who’s] writing X-Men, Superman, or any of those comics is someone who grew up reading them. So the idea of passing stories onto other storytellers is deep, deep, deep within our culture, and it’s a gift to be able to just do it, I feel, contemporaneously.
To be there for it happening and love and trust the person that you’re watching do it. And to have a front-row seat for it. Oh, it was the best. It was like being on a roller coaster. I’m sure people have seen my face in the first episode, where I’m just wildly agog and overjoyed the whole time. It’s incredible. Beats the hell out of Splash Mountain! It’s great. I can’t recommend it highly enough. It was awesome!
You said that you built Bishop Raphaniel Charlock to be good at lying, and he’s been biding his time for a while. What were you excited to explore about this character as a player?
Brennan Lee Mulligan: I’m a pretty easy tell in terms of the throughlines of the player characters I’ve made. For me, the escapism or dream of role-playing games is to be somebody at the heart of the story of their world. So if we’re in a Regency love story, you better believe I’m an honor-bound military man. If we’re in the magical kids at a magic boarding school story, you better believe I’m going to be someone who’s cursed. What’s the way to be in the main theme of what a dungeon master is trying to go for?
I don’t want to be the character that’s the Statler and Waldorf. I don’t want to be commenting on what’s going on. I want to be at the mercy. I want to be picked up by the storm and thrown around. Whatever the DM’s got planned, I want to be the most impacted by it. I think for Raphaniel, knowing that this was going to be all about the Ravening War, the history, and specifically about intrigue, skullduggery, and mystery.
If you tell me this is a six-episode skullduggery campaign, I’m gonna [skulldugger] with the best of them. I’m gonna make a character that can’t get below 20 on a deception with a six constitution because I want a reason to have to sneak around. Please don’t fight me; I’ll die. That’s always what I’m most excited to do. If a DM hits the tuning fork and says, “Here’s the key we’re in,” I want to be right on that key.
I love Calamity; that was heart-wrenching. Would you want to come back to Exandria, but with Matt as a player, after experiencing getting to play in your own world with him as a DM?
Brennan Lee Mulligan: I would love that. You know what’s really funny? I was very nervous about that idea. I talked with Aabria because Abria, who founded Exandria Unlimited, took the inaugural run and came back to Kymal and developed all these amazing parts of the Exandrian in lore; she had Matt at her table. We’ve talked about the like, ooh, there’s the guy right there who knows everything. And by the way, Exandria’s got, let’s call it, a fair amount of lore. They’ve been playing in that world for a couple of years now. So there’s a lot to know, and there’s so much rich texture and history that is so beloved in that world.
I think there was part of me when I was doing Calamity and they were like, “Oh, Matt’s not going to be at this one.” Where I was like, “Oh, bummer. I would love to DM for Matt.” But I was also, in a way, like, “Okay, at least the guy who knows this world backwards and forwards is not going to potentially be at the table with a disapproving that’s not right at all.” Which is the weird little paranoid story you tell yourself.
After having done Ravening War and realizing that there was no part of me, it was just pure joy. Now I would be so excited to go back to Exandria with Matt because I experienced firsthand how gratifying it is to have another dungeon master come in and get to play in that world. That’s amazing. That’s so much fun. I would love to do that for Matt. I think that would be awesome.
Would you start it with earth or air after Matt started his with water?
Brennan Lee Mulligan: [Laughs] Well, now the problem is there [are] only four. I feel bad; whatever one I don’t do, I’m only leaving that with one other choice. So I maybe have to text him and check in. It’d be like, if you don’t have an affinity for earth or air. I don’t want to be… It’s like the etiquette of the last cookie on the plate. I don’t want to, so I’ll figure it out. I’m good with either one. I’m easy. I’ll do earth or air. I have a slight preference for air, but we’ll talk about it. We’ll talk about it.
That killed me when he opened with water, and you and Aabria cannot hold it in immediately.
Brennan Lee Mulligan: Right away. It was so, so funny. I also found out that it’s become a catchphrase a little bit for some of the people at CR. I had no idea that after we did Calamity, people would be in Slack being like, “Fire.” It was really, really fun having Matt come in and do water. Not only because it’s a fun mirror to Calamity, but once again, just like with the House of the Dragon stuff, it’s actually reflecting multiple things at the same time.
Water is a pretty meaningful element in the history of Calorum. It’s a lot more ominous. If you were asking people what they’re more afraid of fire or water, at least in Candia, they’d probably tell you water. I The guy’s a genius, man; it’s not only such a good joke that is metatextual, it’s also an incredibly ominous way to start the season. So, porque no, los dos, it was amazing. I loved it.
I asked Matt about Dimension 20 potentially following in Critical Role’s footsteps with an animated adaptation. And he mentioned that they’ve been sharing notes with you guys. So is that something you’ve been actively thinking about?
Brennan Lee Mulligan: I would say, for our purposes, and I’m going to be a little bit mysterious right now. I’m just going to say that we are very blessed to be working in an industry with so much camaraderie, mutual championing, and open sharing of information, wisdom, and insight. Having those pals over at Critical Role who we talk with about every subject under the sun is something we’re all deeply grateful for. That’s my very genuine and heartfelt, but also very politic answer to your question.
I’ll take the mystery. It’s not a no. Do you have one that you think would be a really fun one to animate? Because Matt didn’t get his picks.
Brennan Lee Mulligan: Oh, wait. What were Matt’s picks?
I’m not going to tell you until you tell me yours.
Brennan Lee Mulligan: Caitlin! I’m going to see it. I can’t believe it! I think that there’s a world where the visual stunningness of the world of A Crown of Candy, as developed by Rick Perry and our amazing artist Sameer Barrett, incredible artists who came back for Ravening War. The visual look of A Crown of Candy is so beautiful that I think if we were doing something in the style of Legend of Vox Machina that has those beautiful scenic paintings and has that kind of feel to it, that’s a hard one to beat.
I will say, and this might be controversial, I think the action sequences from Fantasy High are some of the best in the world. So to the degree of animation, the root word of animation being animate, the force of life. Seeing the Johnny Spells’ car chase animated would be incredible, but I think you can probably make a great argument for so many of the seasons, and seeing them animated will be awesome. It would be incredible. I answer all of them. Let’s do them all. Why not?
That’s my favorite answer. Matt’s were A Crown of Candy, which he said was his favorite season, and Unsleeping City.
Brennan Lee Mulligan: Here’s the funny thing: Unsleeping City I’ve thought about before. I would love to see an animated version of Unsleeping City. I wonder what style it would be. I kind of love the Into the Spiderverse animation style for Unsleeping City. Honestly, one of the best depictions of New York and any media ever. The New York animated in Into the Spiderverse felt more like New York than a lot of movies shot on location in New York. Who somehow managed to still drop the ball. And you’re like, “That’s not it.” Animated would be great.
There’s also part of me that’s like, “What if, many years down the road from now having a live-action version of Unsleeping City or an Unsleeping City theme park?” Why not? Let’s go. What are all the things you can adapt stuff into?
We’ve had a mention of Laerryn in a recent episode of Critical Role. Are you excited to see how the elements of Calamity are going to impact Campaign Three? Do you have any that you headcanon that you would really want to see, like Cerrit’s descendants and the sphere?
Brennan Lee Mulligan: There are so many things I’m excited for. When Laerry’s name came up, I went, [Gasp]. There’s this wonderful moment, especially because the moment is Aabria at the table being like, “Lauren?” It has such a joy to it. Thinking about the ramifications and fallout of Calamity and how they moved throughout Campaign 3. In early conversations about Calamity, we were talking through ley lines, the Apogee Solstice, and a bunch of the bigger cosmological things.
One of the benefits of going that far in the past is that Avalir can have whatever shape it needs to have, because it [was] destroyed X [number] of centuries before the events of Campaign 1. But the cosmological stuff is incredibly pressing. Those things have big world-spanning ley lines and the moons and all of that stuff. It’s quite significant. So I think that in a lot of ways, a lot of that has come back into Campaign 3 already.
In terms of what I would be excited for, head cannoning, or looking forward to, I’m gonna be a bad fan for a second because I don’t have head cannons, if that makes sense. I think that when fans watch stuff and engage with head cannons, they are operating at such a higher level than I am. People that would watch Lost and go on message boards and try to figure it out.
Caitlin, I went to the Magic Castle in Los Angeles, where they have magicians that do tricks and stuff like that, and I was politely asked by the staff to stop gasping. I was just gasping. So you’ve gotta understand when I watch Critical Role, it’s not a thing where I’m in the discord being like, “Okay, now connect.” I see people do that, and to me, that is like magic.
As much as I tell and construct stories when I’m watching a story, here’s what’s going on with me. I’m just going, “Oh, my God!” I just can’t believe it. So when I think about Campaign 3, the fullness of my mental state is, “What’s gonna happen next?” And I stay at that honestly elementary school level for most of my media consumption.
I do the exact same thing. And then my friends are like, “Wow, did you not pick up on this? You write stuff for a living.” I’m like, “That’s not the part of my brain that was working. Come on.”
Brennan Lee Mulligan: Yeah, exactly. When I am doing the magic trick. I’ll know how it works. When I’m in the audience. I just want to be gasping. That’s all.
Speaking of gasping, Matt shocked you guys with that time jump at the end of episode 1 of The Ravening Wars. What is your favorite part of the fact that he’s incorporated time jumps into this and how it affects character evolution and dynamics?
Brennan Lee Mulligan: It is, first of all, once again, an amazing reflection of House of the Dragon, which has that weird mirror relationship. So there’s a very cool, savvy, clever, media-literate component [to] that. There’s something really profound in terms of what the Ravening War is about that you cannot see collapsed into a timeline. I used to write live-action role-playing games for a living.
And I was talking about all the different genres we had worked in and all the different kinds of stories we’re able to tell. A friend of mine said something that was very chilling to me, chilled me to this day. The thing he said was, “Well, yeah, we work in a lot of genres, but the moral is always the same.” And I was like, “What do you mean?” And my friend went, “You can save the world in three and a half hours.” And I went, [Scream]
That’s right because that’s about how long games are; it’s always an apocalypse, we’re always averting it, we always get the job done, and it usually takes about three and a half hours. There are these constraints of the medium that you don’t think of as impacting the content, but they do kind of impact the content. You take a television show like The Wire, that’s all about complex interconnectedness and an ensemble cast. Could you say something that had the same moral if it was a two-hour feature film? Maybe, but probably not as well.
And I think Matt, looking at the constraints of the form, using time jumps to talk about the true wheel of history is such a brilliant way to show this war in what is fundamentally a six-episode miniseries. I think it’s really clever. Part of what you’re seeing when I’m so elated about it is not just the surprise or the shock, but also the delight that we’re actually going to be able to create these characters’ arcs over an amount of time that honors the gravity of the situation. That was brilliant.
With Calamity, you have such a short amount of time. There are still arcs and everything, but you know the end is coming. I was expecting something similar, but he was like, “Nope, we’re gonna go through the war,” Again, this completely flipped any notion I had of what this was.
Brennan Lee Mulligan: I have it in my desk still. This was my little player document for Calamity that I gave to the players for character creation. This is the precursor to the 20-page lore doc we talked about on camera, but if you look at it, a lot of the little images are all feature films. It’s Jurassic Park, Rogue One, and Independence Day. Calamity’s structure is a disaster movie, and I love that The Ravening War’s structure is a kind of grand, very Roman, horrifying march of time that moves throughout. It’s very, very cool. I just really love it.
What’s the development process for you when you’re coming up with a new season? I love how you guys merge genres and play with stuff. Crown of Candy is a great example; Fantasy High is a great example where you wouldn’t necessarily expect that, but it works so well.
Brennan Lee Mulligan: A lot of that is improv training or, honestly, comedy training. Mike Trapp, an amazing College Humor cast member and head writer, has this great newsletter that’s, I think, on hiatus at the moment, but everyone should check it out called Chuffas. Which is a comedy term, Chuffah is the nonsense dialogue at the beginning of the comedy sketch. Have you ever seen a sketch that starts with someone saying, “Well, all the dogs in my basement have founded a bicameral government.” Something where you’re like, “What?” And then the sketch sort of starts. That’s Chuffah.
And his newsletter, called Chuffah, has a really great delineation of this concept within comedy writing and comedy performance, which is basically that comedy notes a contradiction that hinges on something recognizable that makes sense. So you take A Crown of Candy, and you go, “Well, sweet little candy childhood gum drop make believe sugar plum fairy doesn’t seem to go with holy war, betrayal, and throat-slitting palace intrigue, but it does. It contradicts, but look at Candyland. Look at Game of Thrones. Those are monarchs. The contradiction is already hinging and exists somewhere in our popular culture.
A lot of the comedy Unsleeping City is based on lots of urban fantasy, but there’s something inherently about New York. You look at something like Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere that’s set in London, and you’re like, “Wow, this old world, European city with these ancient places. There’s something that’s seems so fitting about that. That probably should be secretly magical.” And then you go to New York, and it’s like, “Eh, I’m questing here!” And there’s again a contradiction because New York is magical, but it’s kind of not.
So I think that’s how we end up cracking a lot of those season concepts. You’re looking for a contradiction: that nevertheless, the lines are not parallel; somewhere, the lines crossed and intersect in a hinge that justifies, explains, and connects to something grounded.
I think that’s super cool.
Brennan Lee Mulligan: This is the old improv teacher in me jumping out. It’s years and years of teaching improv.
One of the things that was so much fun was getting those Easter eggs of characters we either met or heard about in A Crown Candy in The Ravening Wars, as well as concepts that were introduced, like Ally Beardsley’s “Get slammed down big style.”
Brennan Lee Mulligan: Slammed down big style. Hell, yeah.
What was your favorite part of getting to see those aspects, especially knowing what the outcome is down the road?
Brennan Lee Mulligan: That’s the thing. We know the macro, but we don’t know the micro. That’s very reflective of Calamity. The idea of well the Ravening War happens, but there are so many questions unanswered in the interim, important questions. People aren’t even ready for where this season goes. You’ve only just started. You will be amazed at what happens in the next five episodes of this show. Truly, it’s unbelievable, but as you’re saying, watching the other little Easter eggs and things pop up. It was so fun. It invites so many fun, cool connections.
It rewards fans [who] love A Crown of Candy while still being this brand-new story that people can jump into and enjoy. It is also just so cool to watch. Slammed down big style was not in the lore doc. So how Matt got that? We didn’t make a point to be like, by the way, in this region of the world, the euphemism for coitus is getting slammed down big style. That did not happen. So, it was very, very special. It felt, again, like a big honoring of the source material.
There are so many little things like that that get added by the players that crack me up, and the fact that Matt incorporated them was so much fun to me. I don’t know how to explain it other than that it fully immerses you but also takes you out of it, because you’re like, “What just happened?”
Brennan Lee Mulligan: Literally, what just happened? Yeah, it’s unreal. I can’t believe it. The guy’s a genius, man. It was a pleasure and a joy.
I know that all the players on A Crown of Candy had backup characters. Is that true for you guys with The Ravening War too?
Brennan Lee Mulligan: I’m gonna say you might just have to wait and find out. It’s a six-episode miniseries. So if we did have to make backup characters, that would be pretty intense, I would say.
Thank you so much. I could literally talk to you for the entire day, but I don’t want to take up your whole day.
Brennan Lee Mulligan: Caitlin, it’s such a pleasure and a privilege. I deeply, deeply appreciate it. These questions were awesome. Thank you so much for taking the time.
I cannot wait for more episodes. The first one is so good. I hope we see you back on Critical Role too.
Brennan Lee Mulligan: Fingers crossed. It’s wild. I love playing D&D. I’d love to go back to Critical Role, more Dimension 20, all of it. How about it? What a life. Let’s go.
About Dimension 20: The Ravening War
A prequel to Dimension 20’s wildly popular fifth season A Crown of Candy. The new season takes place 20 years before the events of A Crown of Candy during one of the most bloody eras in Calorum’s history, The Ravening War.
Check out our other Dimension 20: The Ravening War interviews:
New episodes of Dimension 20: The Ravening War debut on Dropout every Wednesday.
