The Mighty Nein Origins: Beauregard Lionett (2024)

Critical Role: The Mighty Nein Origins: Beauregard Lionett is the seventh issue of Critical Role: The Mighty Nein Origins, written by Mae Catt with direction by Marisha Ray and Matthew Mercer, art by Guilherme Balbi, colors by Diana Sousa, and letters by Ariana Maher. Balbi and Sousa did the cover illustration. The issue was originally scheduled for publication by Dark Horse Comics in book stores on April 1, 2024, and in comic book shops the following day, but was pushed back to May 14-15. It further explores the backstory of Marisha's player character, Beauregard Lionett.^[1]

Publisher's summary[]

Plot summary[]

Thoreau Lionett is traveling through a forest, as Beau, his daughter, narrates the story of his youth growing up poor and hungry. He reaches the hut of the hag Isharnai and enters into a bargain with her. All he must do is find the right place, and the wine grapes will grow, and he will have a young Beau to take over. He tells this story over and over to his daughter as she grows up, and he gives her a jade necklace he tells her will protect her.

Beau begins working in the winery herself as a teen. One day, she overhears her father with a potential customer, who wants the wines he buys delivered to him, while Thoreau asserts that is not a service they provide. Beau jumps into their conversation, offering to deliver the wine herself but her father forbids it, and the sale is lost. When the customer leaves, Thoreau is angry at Beau, telling her she has no idea what traveling alone across the continent would entail, and Beau is frustrated and resentful he will not listen to her. Thoreau wants her to concentrate on bookkeeping, and warns her their entire commercial empire is terribly fragile.

Beau, however, remains frustrated by the limits of growing up in Kamordah. She steals wine from the family cellars and sells it to low-status taverns that the brand would not normally want to be associated with, concealing the money she earns while telling herself she will turn it over to the family once she's proven her father's business strategies wrong. However, before she can do so, her father tells her he once had dreams and apologizes for crushing hers before the world did. Depressed, she gets drunk in a tavern where she is told she needs to get out of this small town and should talk to "The Tornado", who runs the smuggling game in the Marrow Valley.

Beau goes in search of The Tornado, in the process igniting a barroom brawl where her fighting skills impress a strange woman. Realizing this is The Tornado, Beau offers to provide Lionett wine to her network, and the woman, telling her to call her "Tori", takes her up on her offer. After months of success and profit, Beau takes Tori to a private spot outside town where they plan a major one-time deal and kiss for the first time.

Months later, Beau is close to having embezzled enough wine to fulfill the planned deal when her father discovers the missing wine. In their confrontation, Beau believes she successfully explains it, fooling him. That night, drinking with Tori, she tells her she plans to drop the profits from the deal at his feet, proving her business acumen, and tells Tori how jealous she is of her freedom. Tori, however, explains to Beau that as a criminal she's constantly looking over her shoulder and her "freedom" is an illusion. She plans to use the money to buy herself a new start, while Beau already has safety, security, and opportunity. The argument, however, doesn't prevent them from that night attempting the final wine theft, where they discover Thoreau has set up an ambush and they are both captured.

In the jail, Tori tells Thoreau she blackmailed Beau into cooperating, but Thoreau doesn't believe her. He tries to bribe her into leaving town, and Beau, forever, but Tori refuses. In response, Thoreau has her sent to Zadash to be punished. He takes Beau home but refuses to tell her what became of Tori, and takes all the money she earned through the smuggling, not believing her story that she planned to return it all to him herself. They argue, and three days later Beau is kidnapped from her bed in the middle of the night by strangers and dragged from the house, begging her parents fruitlessly to help her. In response, Thoreau slaps her, telling her, "You are my misfortune." She is carried as a prisoner to the monks of the Cobalt Soul in Zadash, determined to find her own home.

Featured characters[]

Returning[]

• Beauregard Lionett
• Clara Lionett
• Isharnai
• Thoreau Lionett
• Zeenoth (presumed, unnamed)

New[]

• Tori

Media[]

Editions[]

External Links[]

• An Exclusive Preview of “Critical Role: Mighty Nein Origins,” Featuring Our Resident Disaster Lesbian, Beauregard Lionett! on Autostraddle.com, published January 29, 2024.
• Talking with Mae Catt about The Mighty Nein Origins: Beauregard Lionett by Becky O'Brien on Cinelinx, published May 21, 2024.

References[]

Art: