TV Review — ‘Secret Level’ Episode 1: “The Queen’s Cradle”

Welcome to the table,

Secret Level has been the focus of a lot of anticipation for me since it was announced at Gamescom 2024. The animated series created by Tim Miller, who directed Deadpool and created Love, Death & Robots, is a collection of episodes that feature offerings from some of my favorite IPs across the multiverse. Dungeons & Dragons, Mega Man, and Warhammer 40k are just three of the brands showcased in this series and, while art is subjective, I have found each episode an solid representation of the property they are portraying with solid storytelling, skillfully rendered animation, and compelling characters from some of the most iconic setting in gaming.

Episode 1, appropriately titled “The Queen’s Cradle”, is set in the world of Dungeons & Dragons. While this is a far stretch from the animated series that dropped back in 1983, it does feature a band of adventurers in the middle of a quest full fraught with danger.

A human boy, caged and covered in draconic script that looks to be etched into his skin, is being held captive at a camp site when the aforementioned party appears under the cover of darkness to liberate him from his bondage.

What I really enjoyed about that group is that it felt non-traditional from a typical 5e D&D party. There was a Gnome wizard, a Dwarven monk, a Half-Orc druid, and a Goliath paladin. I’ve been so conditioned over the years from video games, movies, and fantasy novels to expect the normal load out of wizard, thief, warrior, barbarian falling along the lines of “Smart”, “Cocky”, “Brooding”, and “Comic Relief.” So to see a party that felt like players had picked it rather than something a little more widely troped was really nice. Also, the druid shaping themselves into a giant boar to deal with the people imprisoning the kid was a very nice touch as it again did not fall into that “bear” or “stealthy jungle cat” I had come to expect from a mainstream D&D offerings.

That is not to say D&D is not mainstream by any stretch. Things like the success of Stranger Things, Critical Role, and Dimension 20 selling out Madison Square Garden reveal the hobby is very much a pop-culture power house and not just a pen-and-paper game I played in the back rooms of comic shops and lunch tables at school. It’s rise in the current zeitgeist is honestly a reason I think the creators behind Secret Level selected it as the inaugural episode. Unlike many of the other offerings we will talk about, there is not a ton of situational understanding needed to be dropped into this kind of D&D story. You know there are probably dragons, you know there is a group of adventurers on a quest, and you know some magical fantasy stuff is bound to happen before it is all said and done. Within the first 3 minutes of the episode, all of these boxes have been checked as after the party liberates the boy from his cage and wanders off with him into the woods we learn that he was kidnapped by the Cult of the Dragon. Then we see some kind of massive bat like thing spying on the party who is being at least in some way controlled by a lich — undead wizard for those not in the know, using a crystal ball.

The episode continues with the newly liberated boy child stabbing the paladin when he has a violent vision of a red dragons eye urging him on and speaking in the chaotic tones of Tiamat, the multi headed queen of chromatic dragons. As someone with no less than twenty things I can reach out and touch from the desk I write this on that has Tiamat on it, the mention of the Nemesis of the Gods brought me joy.

The paladin and the boy have a cool, quiet moment, and then — the story never lingering — drops us into a scene of the party being chased by some rad looking, seemingly undead riders and the Lich who we caught a glimpse of before, now atop this white bat monster. The party splits, not always a good idea, with the monk, druid, and wizard stopping to fight the incoming enemies, and the paladin and the boy entering a dragon temple where they find a gold dragon named Oriel. The animation here is brilliant, really giving big screen levels of detail and design to this massive golden entity, who offers to aid the boy and help him remove the curse placed upon him.

We learn that the gold dragon is a kindly soul and wants to help the boy who says he has been dealing with whatever this curse is for ages. The dragon draws the curse out of him and then we are back to the party who, between some devastating attacks and spells, is making short work of this party of the undead. The druid polymorphs the Lich into a slug and the wizard launches a fairly large fireball giving me the impression the party is somewhere around 10th level, so fairly high level for this kind of shenanigans.

We jump back inside and find the Oriel, who has now taken on the curse, splitting open as the five headed dragon, Tiamat, from what can be described as a portal using bone and blood to be birthed into the material world. As someone who can reach out from where he is sitting at this desk and touch no less than ten things with Tiamat on it, I was pleased to see the Dark Lady rising. A multi headed dragon can be difficult to make look cool. I know that may sound dumb, but there is a certain godlike cosmic power that the Many-Mawed Nemesis of the Gods brings to the table, and the team behind Secret Level did not fail to deliver something truly spectacular.

Tiamat launches her fire breath weapon at the paladin and the boy, and the boy blocks it while clutching a golden hand — the holy symbol of Torm, a lawful good deity in D&D. With his favorite creatures being gold dragons, this signaled to me the kid is now a cleric of Torm, filling the party’s need for one that the wizard tossed out as a throw away line earlier in the adventure.

The party lines up, shoulder to shoulder, readying for a battler with the Queen of Chaos, the Bane of Bahamut, the Queen of Evil Dragonkind, and the story ends as the party stands there heroically ready to defend the realms of men from this incoming goddess of doom.

The lack of backstory, character development, and depth would normally irritate me but the way Secret Level framed this whole thing made total sense. This is D&D, we as players and storytellers impress upon these fairly hollow bits of math and paper our own stories, our own motivations, and our own histories. In every way that a good bit of story seeding needs to happen, Secret Level was successful bringing us a visual Heroes Feast of animation and voice acting that culminated into one of the coolest bits of D&D media I have seen on the screen.

You can check out Secret Level on Amazon right now and it seems Season 2 has already been green lit, so we have much more to come.

Until next time, that party is dead. I know, we want the heroes to win but that is Tiamat, by the numbers with three melee attacks, a breath weapon, and access to spells, she would destroy them. If you run the curve on the non-spell damage alone, she is doing something along the lines of 75 damage a turn on the low end. If the party is on average, based on their assumed equipment and displayed abilities, around 10th level, they may be rocking around 60-80 HP. She can cast Divine Word innately with a DC 26 to save. That spell lets you speak a divine word, imbued with the power that shaped the world at the dawn of creation. She can choose any number of creatures she can see within range. Each creature that can hear her must make a Charisma saving throw. On a failed save, a creature suffers an effect based on its current hit points.

• 50 hit points or fewer – deafened for 1 minute

• 40 hit points or fewer – deafened and blinded for 10 minutes

• 30 hit points or fewer – blinded, deafened, and stunned for 1 hour

• 20 hit points or fewer – killed instantly

Between raw damage output, Divine Word, the fact she can regenerate, and her ability to use Legendary Actions to shrug off saves and magical effects. That party has 8-10 combat rounds tops.

I love they stood shoulder-to-shoulder, they seem like a real nice party, but unless a god steps in or there are ten more of them we did not see that whole team is going down in a matter of minutes … it’s freaking Tiamat.

If you want to learn more check out this YouTube video D&D put out talking about Tiamat: