FYI, Taliesin (Percy) and Matt (DM) were more than ready to sacrifice Percy. Had Vox Machina failed to bring him back, he was absolutely gonna turn into a villain. The idea was that after Percy had crossed out every name on The List (the gun), Orthax would've kept adding names until it had consumed all of Percy and basically "incarnated", as you can see when he inscribes Vex and Grog on the barrels. In fact, Taliesin and Matt came up with this separately, and only discussed it after the campaign was over.

@t3rcx

9 ай бұрын

Not only that, but Taliesin said that the idea for Mollymauk Tealeaf (his character in C2/Mighty Nein - soon to be animated too!) was the backup character he created for Percy. If things had gone differently and Percy died, Molly would've been a member of Vox Machina instead of the beloved heart of the M9. Considering how important Molly is for the overall C2 story, just imagine the alternate universe where VM has to deal with all that instead.

@jamaalgaylord5029

Ай бұрын

Lol spoiler for campaign 2 for those who care. matt rlly likes to turn Taliesin characters into villains lol​@@t3rcx

The timing of 'Dragons seem like small potatoes' comment from Boom, had me dying with laughter 😂

@leenhellemans

9 ай бұрын

yeah the timing couldn't be better xD

@Erika-vc9ly

9 ай бұрын

almost as perfect as Liam having a whole ass Vax monologue of "what is our purpose in this town why should we stay" prior to the dragons appearing

@brianewing5778

9 ай бұрын

That was epic and I was howling with laughter know what was about to unfold!!!

@Starsaber222

9 ай бұрын

Well, to be fair, the dragon from the beginning of the season was the intern of the 4 at the end.

16:45 Percy's player Taliesin said that the only parts of Percy's backstory he thought up were the parts Percy himself had seen. He left the DM to come up with the rest, gave him a blank slate to do what he wanted with. So Matt, the DM, basically wrapped barbed wire round that blank slate and then waited round a corner to smash him in the face with it, figuratively speaking. Normally you'd do more of your backstory on a character, but Taliesin deliberately limited himself to only what his character had seen, so he wouldn't be spoiled on whatever the truth was.

@Ironoclasty

9 ай бұрын

There is a bit more to that, though. Percy was a multi-classed Gunslinger/Warlock (yeah, I know, Gunslinger altered to Fighter in conversion, yeah, yeah, yeah). Warlock's gain their powers from a patron, and in his case, that was Orthax. I think Matt just told him not to worry about who the patron was, it was "just a game mechanic." Then he gets to spring it on him when he least expected it.

@StephenTams

9 ай бұрын

pretty sure Percy is a fighter only but has magic initiate. so he has some warlock stuff but without a patron.@@Ironoclasty

@albatros1ist

9 ай бұрын

@@StephenTams Yes, he had "Magic Initiate: Warlock" with Hex, Friends Minor, Illusion

@Ironoclasty

9 ай бұрын

@@StephenTams . . . are you sure? . . . cuz it kinda looks like he had a patron. And Percy was originally created in Pathfinder as a Gunslinger. Matt converted him with a custom class in order to play the stream with 5E.

@johnobrien7562

9 ай бұрын

@@Ironoclasty Matt's version of the Gunslinger as a fighter subclass is available on the DMsGuild. The show only ever listed him as Gunslinger, while multiclassed characters (Vax as Rogue/Paladin at this point) had all classes listed. He only ever uses Hex, Minor Illusion and Friends in the campaign, what you would expect from Magic Initiate.

24:12 “Dragons seem like small potatoes compared to when we started” 30 seconds later the Dragonpocalypse arrives

@supertjh

9 ай бұрын

I had to check the comments, like "No way no one else didn't point out the impeccable timing of that statement alone." xD

"Dragons seems like small potatoes." SIR! You could not have timed that any better!

The demon possessing Percy was 100% DM's decision. Talesin(Percy) gave Matt(DM) a pretty barebones backstory. "Came from aristocratic family, was attacked and fled from home, the construction of the weapon came to him in a dream." He did have a list of names Percy would know, as well as a detailed description of Whitestone.

The pipeline usually goes, DM makes a setting, so players make backstories in that setting and the dm makes a plot that ties into all the backstories that the players will immediately ignore to build a boat or some shit. At least that’s what my players did.

@MrDarkSidius

9 ай бұрын

Or you plan a session about players clearing hostile hideout, and they spend 20 minutes on deciding who goes first in second door they encountered

@richardhealy

9 ай бұрын

For my next Tomb of Annihilation game, I as DM am working with my players to help enmesh their characters in the world, give them things to chase after and care about before I trigger the main plot.

@ethan4475

9 ай бұрын

​@@MrDarkSidiusIf they take to long, set a timer, and have them surprised by an enemy. When the timer goes off, roll a few dies just to put fear in them.

@MrDarkSidius

9 ай бұрын

@@ethan4475 tbf that was kinda good for me. I had a minor health problem at that moment, but not enough to cancel session, so their banter helped me a little to gather myself. Also I love hearing all this plans of attack, while knowing that next room had zero enemies PS. Rolling dice whenever always good idea, even when they are not stalling.

@ethan4475

9 ай бұрын

@@MrDarkSidius It's more for groups that spend more time arguing then playing. I've had a couple of groups like this.

"Dragons seemed like small potatoes when we started." Everyone who's already seen this: *Pulls at shirt colar* "Ohhhhh boy...."

Season 1 is incredible, and I am glad you all enjoyed it. Season 2 is EVEN BETTER. You might not believe it but it is true. Brymescythe was a young blue dragon. Those a FOUR ANCIENT DRAGONS. And they are pissed. (Liam and Matt do two of the voices) Your jaws will be on the floor I gurantee it.

@robinkuiperij3089

9 ай бұрын

Excited for Season 3 and the Mighty Nein!

@nomnomnorm8035

9 ай бұрын

@@robinkuiperij3089 Hell freaking yeah baby!!! WOO!!!

@SilverScribe85

9 ай бұрын

Two things 1. When the time comes, whose voice would you want to hear as The Whispered One? My pick goes to Steve Blum, Richard Newman (of Transformers fame,) Scott McNeil or Clancy Brown. Second, it's not really a "story spoiler" but...this year, the actor who plays one of those four dragons passed away

@robinkuiperij3089

9 ай бұрын

@SilverScribe85 I think Tony Todd did a great Venom voice. If he soften it up a bit, I think it would be a great Vecna voice.

@SylvaGardenia

9 ай бұрын

@@SilverScribe85 It may just be because he's already played a lich before, but Ron Perlman.

In the show, Matt had plans to bring Orthax back when Percy touched the gun, but Scanlan shut all that down when he grabbed the gun and threw it into the acid pit.

Fun fact about Keylith nearly dying, in the actual campaign it was Vex who got hit with a beam and she survived on 1 HP! If she was killed by that beam, she would’ve turned into a zombie

During this campaign Ashley was working on a TV show and living in New York, so Pike’s astral projection was the explanation for her Skyping in

@Noveler00

9 ай бұрын

She was on "Blindspot"

@nosliwec

9 ай бұрын

During this episode on their live campaign, Ashley's internet crashed at the moment they tried to heal Vex (not Keyleth) in the room with the spinning orb. Her internet came back up, however, when they were dealing with Orthax. The show veered away from this, though.

With Critical Role, especially Campaign 1, backstories were kind of a hodgepodge. You had Laura (Vex) who gave a full multi-page story (including 4 pages just about how she got Trinket), then you had Travis (Grog) who barely even thought of his last name and came up with it at the table, and everything in between. But, for Percy, as other comments have said, Taliesin only told Matt the bare bones of being a noble whose family was murdered by the Briarwoods, and becoming the inventor of the gun. Then he let Matt fill in the rest.

I would suggest you to watch comparison compilations. It's really interesting to see how they changed things from compain to tv series. Also, they already confirmed that there will be animated adaptations of their second campaign.

@ehabolas9338

9 ай бұрын

I cant fucking wait for mighty nien animated!, cause in c2 the cast gave actual backstories unlike c1 where it was kinda hodepodge

I've always loved how Taliesin (Percy) has described his character. I believe either post campaign or in the middle of it duting an interview, he mentioned how people perceived Percy as Doctor Doom when in fact, according to himself, Percy was more Reed Richards which was more terrifying. I've always loved that analogy

@Patrick-jd1ku

9 ай бұрын

oh damn

You know even outside of the game, the irl player of Percy, Talison, has gone on record to say that the one thing that he still hasn't forgiven Scanlan's player, Sam, for is destroying his gun. Both he and his character admit that in the end it was the right thing to do, but he still hasn't forgiven him b/c he really wanted that gun. That is, at least as far as I can remember from when the creators did their watch-through commentary on twitch while these were coming out.

Also to clarify percy's back story Talisn(percy's player) came up with the idea that his family died and he escaped he woke up one day with an idea to make the pepperbox and that is that, the dream portion and the demon was Matthew Mercer's idea to sorta spice up the game and give a cool reason why Percy wants revenge so badly

"We're going into the finale & I feel like it's only begining!" you're only in the 1st quarter of the campaign, so look forward to more to come.

Great reaction! So Vox Machina Origins is a series of comics they did with Dark Horse. The comics take place before the campaign timeline and before the animated show. It shows how the characters met each other and less of their backstories per se. Kith & Kin is a book centered around Vax and Vex and their backstory before they met the rest of Vox Machina. The comics are great and so are the books. 10/10 recommend. Hope that helps!

This last 2 episodes were great.Percy literally batteling his inner demons was epic.

@jtphr33ky

9 ай бұрын

Love Taleisin's quote after Orthax came out of him and they started the fight - "My therapist would be so proud of me!"

If anything. Seeing that final scene with the dragons in stream is so good. One of my favorite moments from their show. The look on everyone's faces as Mercer describes the scene is so good

@jtphr33ky

9 ай бұрын

The moment that gets me is when Grog tries to attack. The look on his face when he didn't hit was priceless. The rest of the cast follows suit. "Time to go!"

Yes, you are safe to read the Origins comics. Those comics cover what they did in their home game before they started streaming the game. They do also include a character that was cut from The Legend of Vox Machina due to the player leaving Critical Role a few months into streaming. They're great comics and they give you added context into how they all met. It doesn't align perfectly with the show but it's definitely worth a read.

Thank god you guys are going straight to season 2, it's even wilder now that you guys know what's going on and the show doesn't need to take as much time with some stuff. Also if the timeline is the same as the previous two seasons, it should be released early 2024! They've been super super fast with production and release dates

@richardhealy

9 ай бұрын

And The Mighty Nein to follow! Critical Role's world domination continues...

@androski5247

9 ай бұрын

Yeah I was looking at announcement dates for the previous seasons, and it looks like it’s about a month before they come out, so there’s still a chance we’ll get season 3 in January/February.

24:13 "Dragons seem like small potatoes from when we started" Heh heh... Yeah... Who's gonna tell him he was the metaphorical runt of the litter?

Ashley was filming the TV show "Blindspot", Matt worked around it with the astral projection (Skype) thing, when she could sit-in from New York when work allowed.

_Vox Machina Origins_ is a series of comic books by _Dark Horse_ that are based on the earliest adventures of the group, long before they started streaming as _Critical Role_ …and long before they were called "Vox Machina". Before they "cleaned up their act" for the streaming audience, the group was the "Super High-Intensity Team", or the S.H.I.T.s for short. The comics include the player character Tiberius Stormwind, who was left out of the cartoon series, because the player, Orion Acaba, left the group just as the Briarwood arc really got underway. So, he would have been in the series until the first quarter of episode 5 - and then suddenly gone forever. Hence they left him out completely to simplify things. (Also, they didn't part on the best terms, so it might have been very awkward to bring Acaba in to reprise his role.) There is also a book, _Kith and Kin,_ that's about the early life of Vex and Vax, before they met the rest of Vox Machina. You see _some_ hints of what it's about, through flashbacks in season 2.

31:00 Ashley Johnson (Pike) had to leave to film the Blindspot TV series. The Astral Projection was Ashley playing via Skype, and when Pikes Astral form disappeared it was actually a disconnection on the Skype call

@WoeUponThee

4 ай бұрын

In this specific instance it was the black orb of death's anti magic radius.

I'm so happy people who know little to nothing about D&D are watching TLOVM because it makes me so excited to see how hyped you guys are, how scared and amazed you guys are and how invested you are in the story, plot, and characters. And how much y'all want to see more of it! That's D&D baby! It's suppose to be fun and scary and get your brain ticking. Welcome to being a critter (that's the critical role fandom name) and I hope if y'all ever get the chance to try and play D&D at least once in your life time Edit: Hamon Quest is what got me into the world of D&D and then introduced me to Critical Role. It's a bit more live show mixed with animations. I recommend it to anyone who wants a crash course to D&D with visuals. 7.5 out of 10.

Keyleth used SolarBeam on Sylas... It was super effective! Foe Sylas "fainted!" Keyleth gained exp and leveled up! LOL! Can't wait until season2 for you guys!

There are some great compilation videos on youtube, that play first the moment from the campaign and then right after the same moment from the show, so you get to see the translation of different moments. Might be a great thing to react to, if you don't want dive into reacting the 100s of hours of gameplay.

As a note: Taliesin Jaffe (The actor who plays Percy) gave Matt Mercer, the DM, very little information for his character. In total, he said he told Matt; 'I was a noble from Whitestone, and one night a family came in for dinner, killed everyone, and left. After that, i developed the world's first Gun to kill them.' The Demon, the curse, all of that was Matt; Percy had no idea, he didn't even know there was a supernatural element, he wrote the backstory after reading a horror story about a couple who came to a chicago building in the early 1900's, killed 20 people, and disappeared.

There are side-by-side videos of the game and the tv show, to see where different elements of the show came from. The Percy player made the gun's backstory purposefully vague so the DM can do what they wanted with it from what I remember.

22:45 on the livestream, Keyleth actually tried touching the orb when no one else was around, and rolled a Natural 20 on a Strength saving throw. Had she failed, she would have been spaghetti'd just like this guard, and her character basically insta-killed with no one in-universe ever knowing why or how.

Even us who know the campaign were frothing at the mouth when they ended it here haha! Glad y’all enjoyed the trip! Look forward to seeing y’all continuing season 2

I'm so happy you guys enjoyed it. And love how freaked you guys were at the end of episode 11. Now you can put him out of his misery and all see what happens next

Season 3 should be coming in the half a year or so. But the best part is, Critical Role’s 2nd campaign, The Mighty Nein, is also getting an animated adaptation on Prime and THAT campaign is phenomenal! It was my intro to CR and D&D and I cannot wait to see my favorite party in animated form! 😁

Also the end of this season into episode 1 of season 2 starts with campaign 1 episode 39: Omens

Most animation productions were not affected by the strikes, as they operated under a different labor deal, including The Legend of Vox Machina. Seasons 1 & 2 both debuted in January, so that’s likely the schedule. The biggest question is whether Lance Reddick was able to finish his voice acting for Thordak, The Cinder King before his death,and how that will be handled.

Hats off to the guy on the far right for remembering the rug in Kreig's room and making that connection of what's to come...

Cant wait for season 2 >:)

The campaign started before they streamed, so it's told a bit how he got it, but there are some comic books that show what happened before even all that. So technically all the backstories are in like 4 or 5 comics. I pretty sure it's called Vox Machina origins. Also, the reason why Percy is the inventor of guns, is because they first started the campaign in Pathfinder where there are some other rules and classes. But when they started streaming, they changed to D&D 5e, cause reasons and stuff. They did had to convert some stuff and I guess Talisien really wanted to keep Percy, so they made some changes to the fighter class.

As far as SAG strike they clarified the strike doesn't effect any of CR IPs. They are a privately owned company (themselves) operating under a different writer contract

The Whispered One, Sylas Briarwood, Orthax, Trinket, & in fact having a vice cameo in all of the episodes is voiced by the Dungeon Master himself Matthew Mercer who also voices Law & Bins (One Piece), Hit (Dragon Ball), Levi (AOT), Jotaro (JoJo), Yamato, Yahiko, Gyuki / 8-Tails, & others (Naruto) but also did Might Guy (Rock Lee & his Ninja Pals), Kagaya (Demon Slayer), Sinbad (Magi), Cassidy (Overwatch), Falco (Cyberpunk: Edgerunners), Yusuke (Persona), Espio (Sonic), Aikuro (Kill la Kill), Nathaniel (Bungo Stray Dogs), Kuroh (K), Mizuki (Durarara), Kiritsugu (Fate), Koichi (Daimidaler), Pipimi (Pop Team Epic), Tygra, Driller, & Kask (ThunderCats -2011), Silver (Fairy Tail), Melvin (Fullmetal Alchemist), Shukuro & Michel (Bleach), Seijiro (SAO), Nagisa’s dad (Assassination Classroom), God (Fruits Basket -2019), Gueira (Promare), Chance & others (Regular Show),

Dragons have classifications based on age which correlate to size and thus their danger. The difference in danger between an adult dragon and an ancient dragon is huge. The blue dragon at the beginning of the series was a classification between "Young Adult" and "Adult"... This hopefully gives an idea for how serious an Ancient Dragon is.

Btw there is actually an official recap song for season 1 sung by Scanlan

If you want some other D&D campaign brought to life, i suggest you the animatic "Fools Gold" made by Dingo Doodle. The story start very disjointed at the beginning but it got so much support that they make there own setting and got founded in kickstart in no time at all.

Basically players give backstory and background for the charaters they will be playing and the DM makes use of it somewhere down the line, say "my parents was taken by bandits but my sister was never found" and then the dm will either hint of the sister being around or have her be a enemy or ally for something happening

Season 3 is supposedly slated for January 2024. (But this is unconfirmed speculation) Same as the release of Hazbin Hotel season 1. and both on Amazon Prime

@hhylobates4098

9 ай бұрын

Source?

@Aeaetiumo

9 ай бұрын

@hhylobates4098 it's been in my calendar for a month, and I've been so hyped since I heard it, but now I can't find a source to back it up... so I guess I'm wrong. Sorry about that. I have found that there is speculation as the last 2 seasons were also released in January, but apparently, that's all there is. I'll edit my original comment to reflect.

Ashley Johnson was filming the show “Blindspot” during the filming throughout most of campaign 1 and some of campaign 2. The Vox Machina Origins really is “how did the group get together “ and you get to meet one OG character, a Dragonborn named Tiberius Stormwind” that his actor, Orion Acaba, was part of the very beginning of campaign 1 but left the show. Why? That is a whole thing they could take paragraphs to explain. If you watch CR campaign 1 Briarwood arc, start at episode 24. There was a whole arc before that not adapted because we, the Kickstarter fans, voted for the Briarwood arc to be adapted. So Briarwood arc is 15 episodes, 24-38. Enjoy. ;)

This so surprised the shit outta me. Prime Video is a service that doesn't seem to serve up much (or at least that I pay attention to) but what they do fucking SLAPS between this, The Boys and Invincible! Also apparently Critical Roll sold another campaign to Amazon for animation so there will hopefully be another banger series to go along with Vox Machina.

The origin comics/graphic novels talk about how they first met and became a group in the town of Stiben. There is also a animated short that covers their adventures prior to the beginning of the live stream.. Both are great and don't spoil anything you may see in this animated show.

So fun info for yall. Currently critical role is in their third campaign. Vox was their first. They have already been approved to produce campaign 2 as well as some standalone movies.

So, the Actress for Pike, Ashley Johnson, was working on the TV series Blindspot when Critical Role was first starting. This is why she was jumping in and out of the story. She was still acting in Blindspot of all of Campaign 1, and also about half of Campaign 2. She's now, very happily, full time in Campaign 3, and we critters are all very happy for it. =)

Can't wait for them to see season 2 Also. Orthax (the demon within Percy) and Sylas have the same voice actor. Who is also the DM of the campaign.

In the lore, this was the second time Uriel had been mind controlled. The first time was pre-stream. So it made sense when he ceded the throne since one person could be manipulated so easily and hopefully an entire council would be harder for that to happen. Also, the Vox Machina Origin books is mostly the pre-stream events.

There are videos that compare the episodes to the actual campaign episodes they are related to just know that something were slightly altered due to length of time and the main focus was placed on the main storyline cause there was a lot of freedom throughout their campaign and in order to fit it all into the show they edited down some of the more filler like content into the show since there was 4 major archs to the whole campaign with the show starting after the first arch but be careful there is spoilers in some of the comparison vids cause of season 2 being released.

16:42 This battle is adapted from the original episode 31 "Denouement", Percy starts arguing with Orthax over Delilah about 40 minutes in, combat starts shortly after and goes to the end of video4 if you want to see the whole event. The major difference is Percy was able to resist total possession and so it was more a standard fight of the whole group vs a demon without having to worry about hurting an ally (mostly...). The animated adaptation is more of a "What if?" situation of Percy losing control.

Yes, Percy did have a dream and made a deal in it and even defended himself during this arc saying "It was just a dream." He also did play Russian roulette with a gun that everyone but him forgot was broken. But it lured Orthax out to where everyone could fight him!

Blue dragon was a young adult. The other four are ancient. Dragons get more dangerous and powerful the older they get. Can't. Freakin'. Wait.

Ashly Johnson had to film a series in NY, blindspot. She sometimes would Skype in to play her character which turned into astral projecting because tech troubles would just drop her sometimes.

The Vox Machina Origins comics cover (broadly at least, with some changes) the part of the campaign they played before they started livestreaming on Twitch. That part of the game, as well as about the first 20ish livestreamed episodes are not ever going to be covered in the animated show (though there were some nods to it in the flashbacks in S1E5), so they're safe to read. Just make sure you don't get one of the Mighty Nein Origins ones, or the Tales of Exandria ones by accident, those are largely about their second campaign (same world, about 30 years after LoVM, different characters) which is also going to get animated! We unfortunately don't have a release date on that yet, but it'll probably be a while yet.

Let's answer a few of your questions. I'll put them past the "show more" so you can skip this if don't want answers. 1) Percy's backstory was much more detailed than most because Taliesin Jaffe dusted off one of his old scripts that never went anywhere for the character. That being said, he purposefully didn't give the GM anything that the character wouldn't know himself, so for the gun he just said "I had a weird dream and came up with the gun, and the dream told me to put the names on the barrels". Orthax the demon and Cassandra being alive is a Matt Mercer original. 2) Ashley Johnson was shooting Blindspot for NBC, which was shooting in NYC. Because of that she was in-and-out for a lot of campaign 1 and a bit of campaign 2. 3) They had to do a LOT of changes to crunch what was 60h of gameplay for the Briarwood arc into 10 episodes of 22 minutes and to get around D&D copyrights (also because some things would''ve been too hard to animate). The general story is the same and most of what happens in the show is some sort of analogue for something that happened in the stream.

There's a series of videos on youtube: "Vox Machina - Table to screen" where some fanscut together some scenes from the series with their respective counterparts from the actual game!

And Taliesin STILL hasn't forgiven Sam for throwing his gun into the acid. It's been over half a decade and he's still mad. He's still plotting Percy's revenge, two campaign's later. It's hilarious. Also, The Spinning Orb of Death was so named because Keyleth did what the priest did and only didn't get slurpied because she rolled a really high strength saving throw and only injured her arm having it be nearly pulled out of it's socket rather than get fully pulled in. Do not touch the Spinning Orb of Death.

It's very subtle. But with every kill Percy gets off of his list, the possession intensifies throughout this season.

If you like more stuff like this I would both recommend the second season, of course, but also Netflix's animated Castlevania adaptation. It's similar to this show in terms of tone and epicness, and the animation is *phenomenal*.

I don't think The Legend of Vox Machina is being affected by the strike. They write the script in house, and most of the voice actors are also in house with some exceptions.

I like how in the beginning of the video you talk about how this is a hell of a campaign. This season was just about 15 episodes of 115 episodes (not counting one-shots or the first nine levels the party did before the campaign was streamed). You've just scratched the surface.

The first campaign on their channel was their home game brought to Geek and Sundry midway through, so jumping into their first might be a bit disorienting. I do highly recommend their 2nd campaign featuring the Mighty Nein though! That’s my first full campaign I watched and it’s fantastic! Plus the Mighty Nein is also green lit and will be made for tv which I’m so hyped for!!!! Each episode of a campaign is like 3-5 hours depending on the situation so it’s a hell of a grind, but it makes for a super fun listen while working on other things. I listened on my headphones while at work and often was laughing like a mad woman at their antics in game. Campaign 2 had an amazing cast too and such touching and hardcore moments. The finale made me cry!! So good!!😊

VoxMachina Origins is pre-campaign stuff. Clear of any spoilers for the show.

16:24 - the moment a new Critter was born.

The origins books are about how the group met each other and what happened in the games before they started recording for KZread. There wouldn't be any spoilers for anything in the future, just give some more context and depth to the characters relationships with each other.

*vibrating for them to get into season 2* Also for context, 1) Taliesin (the actor that made Percy) created a story saying that he was a noble on a family up north, basically creating whitestone, and that one day a couple came and after some days murdered all his family, and then had a dream that led him to create the first gun in Exandria. Matt took that and just went off and made Sylas a vampire, and all the subplot of the whispered one and gave Orthax a name. In campaign, Percy lets Cassandra kill Delilah so that she could get her revange, but that meant Orthax no longer had names and made Cass appear on the gun, Percy resists him and the demon gets out of him and they gotta fight it. That fight was much more epic on the show 2) As you said, Ashley had to be in new york for the majority of campaign 1 and about half of campaign 2 because she was filming Blindspot so her "astral projection" was a joke on her being on skype calls that would sometimes lag or freeze. 3) The origin comics are the story of how vox machine got together, but they are cannon adjacent to the show. The show is an adaptation of the stream but its not beat by beat. They condensed about 50 episodes of 4ish hours each of gameplay into a coeiceve 12 episodes so a lot was edited and moved around. The comics wont spoil anything of the show but do include a character that you will not meet because that person left CR prior to the whitestone arc beginning so it was a clean cut from the animated plot.

Fun fact: Scanlan throwing the gun into the acid and it killing the demon for good was completely by accident he just assumed the gun needed to be destroyed and saved Percy from being enslaved by it again since that was the plan if it was never destroyed.

You guys are great! I love watching this for the first time again. You should definitely watch the first campaign, but the Briarwood arc doesn't really kick up till around ep 26 or so

I've been watching Critical Role for years, and I'm always excited to see new fans get enthralled in the story. So glad to see you all loving this so much. Maybe if theres such a long wait for season 3, after season 2 you guys could catch up on Campaign 1 of the live episodes. I would recommended watching the first handful of the shows off camera, the quality wasn't amazing because they were just starting off, and the livestreams started sometime in the middle of VM season 1, but once they get things rolling it'll be worth to see how some of those moments played out game wise and the reactions of the players just makes it so much better. Along eith seeing how Matt handles and surprises the crew with plot twists and amazing sound effects! Cant wait to see more!

Don't miss out on the Scanlan recap video, you may not think you need a refresher, but you really need to see it. KZread is full of comparison videos playing select scenes from the animation alongside of the corresponding scene from the live action. Also the behind the scenes series of videos (season 1 reference only) The Legend of the Legend of Vox Machina. Talking with production, artists, writers, cast... I love the story about how the amazing lead Composer got the job. It's just a handful of 20ish min video's but still impressively fun to watch. Could even make for more reactions. Here's a link to the playlist. kzread.info/head/PL1tiwbzkOjQwJdoNetaNJE1zZVOE7xi8u

32:43 the Origin comics cover material from the home game that wasn’t streamed, backstory related context, and parts of the very first arc of the campaign that was streamed right before the Briarwood arc which was not animated. The comics and other novels are canon to the campaign the Critical Role team has said as much. The series how I see it is quite literally the LEGEND of all of these events and how with certain parts may not be accurate or even conflict with the established history of Vox Machina.

the scream of matt mercer as sylas dying was just chef's kiss...hoping for more seasons since season 2 ended, i wonder how many seasons they can do...?

The Briarwood story arc for the live play ttrpg starts around episode 28-30

Percy came from the idea of, and I am paraphrasing Taliesin ''The poor bastard that invented the first gun and what would be the motivation'' He gave the backstory of what happened that night the Briarwoods came and the names of the family they murdered, then Percy was just existing in the world, depressed, broken. Vox machina found him in a jail cell and he joined them. All else, the demon, Cassandra being alive, what the Briarwoods plans were that was all the DM.

its probably already been said but there have been edited videos made showing the campaign clips on how the 'scenes' were played on the streams, then showing how that was transfered to the animated show. kind of a side by side style/ comparison thing. Maybe thats something to check out and react to as you have interest in seeing how it was when it was live, without the pressure of a deep dive into hundreds of 4hr long live game episodes!

I'm right there with ya guys. This anime is so so good, can hardly believe just how good it is. I've watched it several times and it stills gets to me with certain scenes. I still get excited during scenes with Keyleth and Pike being badasses.

I just finished watching season 2 of Vox Machina and I can't wait for you guys to watch it. And I want to say thank you for getting me into this series.

I totally think you should watch some clips from the actual campaign. Some recommendations are the door from episode 6, Percy hearing the Briarwoods name the first time, scanlan throwing pepperbox in the acid so many awesome moments. Even more season 2

Someone probably already linked it (or will) but there are a couple of YT videos out there that show some of the highlight moments from this show, and the same event in the campaign. The discovery of the people hanging from the Sun Tree is horrifying. Watch for spoilers though, the same kind of videos exist for S2.

I'm sure its been mentioned in other ways but a DnD thing to keep in mind: Dragons grow in power as they get older, basically exponentially. They go (generally): Wyrmling (5 years or less) Is baby but still very dangerous Young (6-100 years) your average dragon but a bit more manageable Adult (101-800 years) your average dragon Ancient (801 years or more) Fuck around and find out (You're dead) The blue dragon from the start of this season? Young Dragon, probably bordering on adult. These four pulling up now? ANCIENT DRAGONS

The strikes are a different union so supposedly shouldn't affect LoVM or so we've been told. So unless they hold stuff back in solidarity, it shouldn't affect anything. The guess has been January but they didn't announce it during NYCC so now we're thinking maybe February but no one knows for sure. I'm sure someone else has said but Pike was filming the show Blindside in NY so she'd play via zoom when she could or drop in but it'd be hard bc if the time difference. She couldn't stay up until 3 or 4am every Thursday playing dnd lol There are TONS of clips of show vs campaign or just campaign. Just let someone vet the clip first so there aren't spoilers. The bodies on the Sun Tree was a pretty epic moment to watch. Keep in mind there is a char who was cut for the show bc he left the stream for... reasons but in the stream his doppelganger was on the tree too.

I love how much you enjoy this show. It's a fucking gem.

There are a bunch of side by side comparison videos between campaign and series

Worth noting. Dragon's power correlate with their age. The first one was a young one. The new ones are "Ancient" ones. (Hella old, insanely powerful). The second season is pretty damn good

so often with DnD backstories they are made with the DM, or the DM takes a look at it before the game starts and asks you to add things or suggest other things. What also very common is and what i like to do is leave certain things undetailed. This leaves room for the DM to do whatever they like. For example: you might say that you father and mother were killed and could only see a glimse of the faction/orginasation that killed them. This will give the DM the freedom to decide which faction did it. this is done to tie all the character to a common goal/enemy. either that or there is a threat so great it will effect all who live in the world and dealing with each characters problems seperatly that might have influence on the overal plot but not neccesarily

So about Percy's backstory: Taliesin (Percy's player and VA) only wrote as much of his backstory as Percy himself would have known. So he wrote that this couple came to Whitestone and then for some reason decided to torture and kill everyone. Percy managed to escape and at some point in his trauma and revenge fueled nightmares he dreamt of a shadowy figure that showed him how to build a weapon. That dream could've very well been just that, a dream. Percy believed he just had an idea in his sleep. Everything else, the Whispered One, the Ziggurat, Orthax the shadow demon, even Sylas being a vampire came from Matt (their Dungeon Master). So while they were playing, Taliesin himself didn't even really know what the hell was going on with Percy and his gun. Just that he was out for vengence.

My advice if I'd been there... between 11 and 12: you thought the animation department was popping off in 11... just wait... *evil maniacal laughter ensues*

I really love that moment where Grog starts swinging blindly. Peak Grog logic. And it's peak DnD too, because it's something so unbelievably stupid that by all rights really _shouldn't_ work, but somehow it does. Not looking where you swing doesn't make you less predictable. But sometimes the dice fall _just_ right to allow something like that to work (not that that's literally what happened in the campaign, but it's totally sth I could see happening in a game). I chose to believe that in universe the reason he actually got that hit in on Sylas was because Sylas was top busy going 'wtf????? ' to dodge.

So excited for you guys to get to season two!!!!!

If you want to check out a more easily watchable campaign by critical role, I highly recommend their 4 part campaign ran by Brennan Lee Mulligan, The Calamity. It’s an epic tragedy set during what’s referred to as the Age of Arcanum within the same world as Vox Machina, but thousands of years earlier. I would not be surprised if this 4 part campaign became a film, it’s THAT awesome. The mystery, the epic setting, the tragic events leading to basically the apocalypse for Exandria, it’s all expertly crafted and told. I cried, I laughed, I was on the edge of my seat. It would be a blockbuster hit if they made it a film adaptation.

So ready for you guys to get to season 2!!!

The show is trying to avoid using proprietary D&D terminology, nomenclature, and monsters, but the Whispered One that the Briarwoods were trying to bring into the world has a name that was actually used later in Stranger Things: Vecna.

Maybe after Season 2, you guys can react to some of the table to screen fan clips of specific moments from the live game.