Web Video / Dimension 20: Mice & Murder

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One of two Dimension 20 projects that had been in pre-production before the pandemic sent everyone home (the other one being the similarly named Misfits and Magic). Like Pirates of Leviathan and The Unsleeping City: Chapter II, this season did not have the players in the Dome, unlike previous seasons, Brennan DMed from the Dome. All other players filmed from their homes with custom setups to provide a unique color background and lighting rig.

This side-quest is unique because the cast was pulled exclusively from Dropout cast members, including the CEO Sam Reich. Ally, one of the Intrepid Heroes, joined the cast and in a subversion of the usual hierarchy, they got to act as one of the veteran players as opposed to a newbie like they were during Freshman Year. Rekha, who previously appeared in Escape From the Bloodkeep also returned.

The season pulls from many 1800s/early 1900s mystery tropes and wears them on it's sleeve. Besides Sherlock Holmes, Agatha Christie and anything that would have been adapted by PBS' Mystery! was on the table to be referenced.

The Sylvan Sleuths for this season were:

• Brennan Lee Mulligan as the Dungeon Master
• Ally Beardsley as Lars Vandenchomp, canine fighter
• Sam Reich as Buckster $ Boyd, javelina rogue
• Katie Marovitch as Gangie Green, weasel rogue
• Raphael Chestang as Vicar Ian Prescott, owl bard
• Rekha Shankar as Daisy D'umpstaire, raccoon rogue
• Grant O'Brien as Detective Sylvester Cross, fox rogue

Mice & Murder contains examples of:

• Action Film, Quiet Drama Scene: For Dimension 20 as a whole; this season is a murder mystery and as such, is based around intrigue and politicking.
• Agent Mulder: Lucretia Brockhollow insists that ghosts, and several other supernatural entities, are real, and is portrayed as very gullible.
• The Alleged Expert: Daisy, who is meant to be this setting's equivalent of Irene Adler, gets hit hard by Rekha's abysmal rolls in the first few episodes and comes off as incompetent at times. This is Justified as her being thrown off by the presence of her ex-fiance, Sylvester Cross, and she gets better as the series goes on.
• Anachronism Stew: A couple of minor examples, somewhat Played for Laughs.
  • Daisy is described as tearing open a garbage bag, which didn't exist until over fifty years after this season takes place. Furthermore, the word "Dumpster", from where her surname originates, wouldn't be coined as a term until 1935.
  • A figure named "Eel Musk" is said to own the "5G" phone company and is spying on people through their phones.
• At Least I Admit It: After Buckster has a conversation with the Squire regarding the deaths in their respective businesses, Ally comments that they prefer Buckster, since he openly states that his workers have died and he doesn't care, while the Squire tries to cover it up.
• Call-Back: When Sylvester is framed for the murders and seemingly doesn't contest it, Rekha points out that if this is actually the case, it would be the second time where Grant has been the murderer in a murder mystery she's been involved with, referring to an episode of Game Changer where this happened.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • The bust of Emperor Barkus Aurelius: it is not only the murder weapon, but the incorrect date on the statuette itself is the combination needed to open the door to the Squire's underground vault of stolen treasure and the morgue where the fake corpses are assembled.
• Expy: A good portion of the player characters are parodies of figures from Sherlock Holmes, with Sylvester Cross being Sherlock, Lars Vandenchomp being Watson, Daisy D'umpstaire being Irene Adler, and Fletcher Cottonbottom being James Moriarty.
• Fair-Play Whodunnit: The mystery is completely solvable for the audience with all the clues laid out by both Brennan and the players even before watching the finale.
• Faking the Dead: This was the original plan before Squire Brockhollow decided to turn coat, where the deaths of his whole family and their spouses would be faked so that they could go into hiding overseas while Fletcher Cottonbottom dealt with their debt. When the squire got cold feet and attempted to back out, Cottonbottom actually killed him.
• Foreshadowing: This is a murder mystery, of course there are going to be clues that are brought up later as the mystery gets solved.
  • The fine ground glass that was discovered underneath the secret door into the study: it's the debris of a camera's shattered flash bulb.
  • When Lars, Gangie and Buckster confront the deadly masked assailant at the top of the elevator Gangie strikes them as they're retreating. When his shovel makes contact it causes an audible crunch on the figure's body: turns out Gangie broke the camera on the assailant's person.
  • Daisy can't quite shake her hunch that she's not looking at the real Squire Badger's body. It is in fact the Squire's real body but clues her and the rest of the sleuths into the fact that there is a conspiracy involving decoy corpses.
  • The sleuths are informed that there is a secret third floor to Loam Hall that is solely accessible via the elevator and only at 3 o'clock in the morning. They initially write this off as a little strange and are forced to wait until 3am until they can explore this avenue, until Buckster realizes 3 o'clock doesn't refer to a time, but a direction in which one has to turn the elevator's key to access that floor.
• Furry Reminder:
  • Armand, being an armadillo, is capable of rolling into a ball; he's mentioned that he's being used in a local mill as a millstone.
  • Daisy, a raccoon, eats trash as a Running Gag, even having some stored on her hat.
  • At Daisy and Sylvester's impromptu wedding at the end, the two lick each other affectionately rather than kissing, as actual animals would.
• Hidden Depths: Gangie, an orphan with no formal education, manages to convey to Sylvester, who is this setting's equivalent of Sherlock Holmes, information about a species of mushroom that uses cyanobacteria in order to generate electricity.
• Hold Your Hippogriffs: The collective noun for people in this universe isn't "men", but "beasts", as illustrated by Buckster quite a few times.
• Mechanically Unusual Class: Vicar Ian Prescott isn't a Cleric like one might expect, but instead a College of Eloquence Bard. This might be due to the fact that Bards in D&D Fifth Edition are spontaneous casters, and the whole season takes place in a single night, so Ian wouldn't have time to re-prepare spells.
• Never Suicide: The death of Squire William Brockhollow is initially seen as a suicide due to the fact that the victim was seen stabbing himself with a knife moments before he died but this is quickly disproved by Detective Cross.
• Never the Obvious Suspect: In the same vein, the most obvious murder suspect is the maid Mrs. Molesly as she was the only person present in the room where Squire Badger died. Sylvester Cross again quickly rules them out as a major suspect due to being incapacitated by photosensitive epilepsy during the time the murder took place.
• Our Mages Are Different: As this takes place in a semi-historical time period, Vicar Ian's bard spells are instead said to be extensions of how well he can interface with people, with Detect Thoughts just being a form of further insight.
• Politically Correct History: LGBT couples are more commonplace in this setting than would've been expected in the Edwardian era.
• Running Gag: After a while, Rekha attributes her bad rolls as Daisy to other people looking at her, so in-character she asks people to turn away and attempts to be alone when rolling. Bafflingly enough, it seems to work, with her hitting a Nat 20 while going over some files in the bathroom letting her discover that there's wiring in Loam Hall that allows images to be projected to other parts of the house.
• "Scooby-Doo" Hoax: The murder has heavy overtures of the supernatural, as the main setting of Loam Hall has a history of spectral activity and many of the guests believe that a ghost was responsible for the murder. In fact, the electromagnet that was used to kill Squire Badger inadvertently made it appear as if a poltergeist ravaged Squire Brockhollow's study as he was being killed.
  • Additionally, when Fletcher's henchmen are framing Sylvester for the crimes that have taken place in Loam Hall, it's made to seem like that the supposed killer is able to commit murder through magical and psychic means.
• Secret Stab Wound: Squire Brockhollow never revealed that he was injured in the Schnauzer War, because he was injured while engaged in a war crime— to be specific, looting.
• Shout-Out: A badger lady named Constance.
• The Summation: Parodied in the finale. Buckster, not Sylvester, does end up gathering everybody in the drawing room claiming he has solved the mystery but in fact is acting as a diversion while the rest of the Sylvan Sleuths are busy uncovering the real killer's identity.
• Weak, but Skilled: While there are fairly high skill scores across the board, the party is still at 3rd Level, which is barely out of the gate in most 5e campaigns. In addition, several of them have HP that barely breaks into the double digits; Lars barely survives an attack from the Masked Figure, and said attack would most assuredly have outright killed some of the other Sleuths who were with him.
• Webcomic Time: Barring a couple of flashbacks, the entire season takes place over the course of a few hours in-universe, while the season is about twelve hours long.
• World of Funny Animals: Set in an alternate world where everyone is an anthropomorphic animal of one kind or another.
• X Meets Y: This season is a Victorian murder mystery (Sherlock Holmes, the oeuvre of Agatha Christie) meets The Wind in the Willows.