Dani Carr has been a key part of the overarching story of “Critical Role.” Her role as Lore Keeper touches every piece of “Critical Role” media. Now, she has brought her voice to the Mighty Nein in an exciting new way. Carr penned the prose in “Chronicles of Exandria Mighty Nein Part Two” from the perspective of an unexpected and plucky ally. The art book is full of beautiful art pieces covering several of the Mighty Nein’s adventures. From their exploits in Xhorhas to when the Mighty Nein were striving for peace between the Kryn Dynasty and Empire.

The Mighty Nein Finally Get Their Recognition From an Unlikely Source

The Mighty Nein like Vox Machina are heroes to Exandria. However, unlike the acclaimed heroes of the realm they flew under the radar. The Mighty Nein stopped wars and halted much darker entities. While Vox Machina’s heroics were front and center fighting dragons and deities the Mighty Nein worked in the shadows.

This makes deciding who can tell their story a difficult decision. Other than those who were directly involved with the the Nein were often overlooked. Iva Deshin is an interesting choice because unlike many of the others she wasn’t a power player. Instead she was the shop keeper that some of the Mighty Nein came across only briefly. Carr doesn’t know exactly why Iva Deshin was chosen as the narrator. However, she shared with Temple of Geek why Iva is the perfect one to tell the Mighty Nein’s story.

Dani Carr:

She talks in when they meet her in [Zemnian Nights] about writing a book. So, I think that Liam liked this idea of being able to take it from a perspective of someone who was a fan of the Mighty Nein and be able to, again, just look at it from a different angle. Look at the group from a different angle. Because so much of the Mighty Nein is like no one knows who they are, but there’s this one person whose at least kind of heard of them. I think that was kind of the inspiration, but again, I’m not 100% sure because I was brought in a little after that decision.

In order to tell the Nein’s story, Carr needed to approach it from Iva’s perspective. Part of this was getting into the mindset of someone from the Dwendalian Empire. Much like Thea Guanzon, who wrote “Tusk Love,” this meant infusing the impact of propaganda into Iva’s perspective. This comes out both in the field notes and the margins. Carr explained how she approached writing the field notes versus the margin notes.

Dani Carr:

The notes in the margin were very specifically meant to be written after her field notes as these notes to the editor. The whole idea behind the manuscript was that it was her taking all of these notes and compiling them together and sending them off to this editor that she’s made friends with. Basically the editor’s notes have been to give the editor a little bit more context so that if they’re reading it and have questions, like why are we suddenly getting whole thing about this city or something. She’s like, well, this is why I went here.

So, that was kind of the inspiration for the margin notes versus the text of the field notes. Also wanting to play around with it being about maybe a year later or so when she’s writing her notes versus when she’s writing the margin notes. I don’t know how successful I was, but hopefully being able to showcase a little bit of a change in temperature between how she writes in those journal entries versus in the editor versus in the margin notes. That was sort of the inspiration there.

Iva Deshin is an Unexpected Hero & Mighty Nein’s Lore Keeper

Iva Deshin doesn’t see herself as an adventurer. As she chases the path of the Mighty Nein across countries and through warzones. However, she clearly is, with this story being her greatest adventure. Iva bravely explores new lands, confidently meets individuals she never would have, and faces down her own ignorance. Carr explains how she approached Iva’s inability to recognize her heroics as an adventurer.

Dani Carr:

Honestly, it was mostly just because I thought it was funny. I just thought it was so charming. I really wanted to make her very charming. Because she’s a woman in her forties and she’s off on her first big adventure, but to her, she’s just trying to be a journalist. She doesn’t really ever fight anybody. She doesn’t have tangles with gelatinous cubes or anything like that. But she does go on this big adventure. She uses her wiles and her charm and her ingenuity to get her through any difficulties.

She kind of figures it out at the end, but I love this idea of her being like, but I’m not like all those other adventurers who do these incredible things. And then at the end she’s like, oh, I did kind of go on a little adventure, didn’t I? Because the second that she sees actual battle, which is at the very end, she’s like, oh, no, I don’t like that. She got very lucky throughout her journey to sidestep all of the really scary parts because she’s meant to be very plucky and charming.

That’s why she intrigued Yussa because she just fully walks up and is like, ‘Hi, I would like to be your friend now.’ And he was like, ‘what?’ He was like, okay, you’ve got something going on with you. I’m going to keep an eye on this. I think a lot of journalists would have that same sort of perspective of, well, I’m writing about the heroes I’m writing about. I’m making sure that their story is told. It’s the same as when you watch these adventure shows and everything like that.

I always think of Man versus Wild, and you see Bear Grylls doing all these really intense things. No one thinks about the fact that the cameraman is there. I’m always like, how’s he doing? How’s that guy? So, I’m like, does he have an RV or something? I wanted to give a little bit of a peek behind that curtain. But also, I was always very inspired by Lois Lane and Jessica Fletcher of “Murder She Wrote” and stuff like that.

These people who through sheer confidence, just walk into a situation and are like, I’m going to find something out today. So that was sort of the perspective that I was having there. Again, she’s very much of that idea of wanting to ensure that she’s telling a story of the people that she views as heroes. It’s only at the end where she realizes that she kind of became a hero in her own right, in a very different way, but still it was enough for her.

Hilariously, Iva is in some way the Mighty Nein’s own lore keeper. Although Carr didn’t base Iva on herself, she takes the comparisons as a compliment. However, unlike Carr, she sometimes gets details wrong. These inaccuracies not only make “Chronicles Of Exandria Mighty Nein Part Two” more charming, but also make sense. Iva wouldn’t be able to know all the details because, unlike Carr, she isn’t witnessing the events. Carr broke down why it was fun to find the balance between inaccuracies and accuracies in the Mighty Nein’s story.

Dani Carr:

I’ve seen a lot of people say that this is just me. Whenever I was writing, I was like, well, that wasn’t the point. I just wanted to make her cute and fun, so I’ll take it as a compliment. But no, I, again, just really wanted to make her charming. Somebody that you would want to go on this little trip with. See her thoughts about these people whose adventures we saw already. We’re seeing them from this different perspective. So, what makes that interesting? She has to have her own flavor, and she has to have her own twist on things. There’s times in the story where she’s not correct about what happened.

She makes a bunch of guesses, and one of them is kind of close to what happened, but then she’s way off on a bunch of other things. She’s throwing stuff out there as potential, maybe this happened or maybe this happened. I wanted her to be wrong a lot of the time. Obviously, I needed her to be right, the vast majority. It’s still an art book where they’re trying to get information about what the art pieces are. But then I still wanted to throw in times where she’s just kind of wildly guessing. You have no evidence to go off of, but you’re just going to throw some thoughts out there.

Dani Carr Explains How Her “Critical Role” Experience Shaped Her as a Creator

Carr has been an integral part of “Critical Role” for most of their time on the air. She has been instrumental in the different play series, comics, and novels, working with countless artists, writers, and performers. This experience has been key to establishing who she is and her skills as a creator. Carr explained how her experience at “Critical Role” helped her with her own project, “The Witch Wolf.” “The Witch Wolf” is a webcomic Carr writes with her wife, Bree Williams, who is the artist.

Dani Carr:

I am taking so much of everything I’ve learned over the years of being a Lore Keeper and being a production coordinator at CR. Allowing it to fuel my own working relationship with my wife and my own creativity. I’ve learned so much from all of the brilliant writers and artists that we have worked with and how to convey ideas. How to have conversation with and get across that creativity. Be like, okay, well, this is the story that we’re trying to tell. How do we make sure that Mighty Nein Origins Mollymauck expresses this idea?

We need to make it clear that this character has passed peacefully. How does that look different from someone who did not pass peacefully? How do we make it clear that this is a comic, this is drawn? How do we make it clear that this character’s not sleeping? How do we make it clear that they’re gone, but that it’s okay? And so, in having these experiences and learning so much from all of the incredible creatives, especially the team at Dark Horse.

Especially all of the writers and artists that I’ve just been so lucky to work with. I’ve been using that to allow myself to grow as a creative and to help convey ideas and to work well in this partnership with my wife. They’re brilliant in so many ways. Being able to work with her and make sure that we’re both getting our ideas across, both in the text and in the art is so important and so invaluable. It’s really been our love language since we started dating, was telling stories together.

So, having Critical Role give me this sort of leg up in learning because I really had to learn sort of trial by fire. I have a theater background, and even though I grew up reading comics and am a voracious reader of prose, I still had to learn all of the intricacies of how to convey that idea. How to get things across and how to make it clear. Even though we are trying to make this idea clear, we only have so much space.

We only have so much we can say in a panel on a page, that sort of thing. Trying to not overwhelm a creative versus trying to still make sure that they’re understanding things like that, learning that language, because it is its own language, has been extremely helpful. As Bree and I work on The Witch Wolf together.

“Chronicles Of Exandria Mighty Nein Part Two” is available now for purchase. Check out “The Witch Wolf” now.