Based on the blockbuster podcast where the McElroy brothers and their dad play a tabletop RPG and illustrated by cartooning powerhouse Carey Pietsch, The Adventure Zone: The Crystal Kingdom takes this #1 New York Times bestselling series to haunting new heights.
A desperate call for help interrupts holiday celebrations at the Bureau of Balance, and sends Taako, Magnus and Merle on a high-stakes mission to find and Reclaim a fourth deadly relic: a powerful transmutation stone, hidden somewhere in the depths of a floating arcane laboratory that’s home to the Doctors Maureen and Lucas Miller. An unknown menace has seized control of the stone, and is using it to transform the lab into a virulent pink crystal that spreads to everything it touches.
It’s only a matter of time before this sparkling disaster crash-lands, but in order to find the stone and save the whole planet from being King Midased, our heroes will have to fight their way through a gauntlet of rowdy robots and crystal golems, decide whether they can trust the evasive Lucas Miller, and solve the mystery of what―or who―has put them all in peril, before there’s no world left to save.
Meet the McElroys! Clint was born first, which recent studies have shown is the best procedure for fathers and sons. Justin came along twenty-five years later, two weeks late, actually, which caused his mother, Leslie, some consternation and more than a little back pain. Three years to the day (yes, the very day) Travis came along, forever ruining Justin’s birthday, at least according to Justin. The decision was made to not have a third child born on November 8th, so Griffin arrived three-and-a-half years later on April 17th. There followed this decade and that, during which there was a lot of school, theater, broadcasting, video games, moving around the country and various and sundry monkeyshines. Then came a time for fewer monkeyshines, so a ton of marriages happened and people were added to the family branch. In the midst of all this begetting, podcasts began springing up in even greater abundance and their names were My Brother My Brother and Me (which spawned a popular tv show), Sawbones, Shmanners, Wonderful, and a farcical romp called The Adventure Zone.
Carey Pietsch is a cartoonist based out of Brooklyn, NY. Her work includes drawing two arcs of Lumberjanes and the artwork for the Mages of Mystralia webcomic. Carey also makes Keepsakes and other original comics about magic and empathy. Along with brightening her workdays, The Adventure Zone got her to join a D&D campaign, where she’s currently playing a dragonborn sorcerer who cares too much about romance novels.