Critical Role And Legend Of Vox Machina S3 Cast Discuss Changing Story, Revisiting Moments, And Mighty Nein Update

The Legend of Vox Machina is returning for its third season on Amazon Prime. Ahead of its release TechRaptor, along with a number of other outlets, had a chance to sit down and ask the core cast of Critical Role about the experience of revisiting Vox Machina once more and the task of adapting the campaign further into the TV show.

While there are no direct spoilers a number of features about Season 3 are teased related to locations and plot, if you want to go into this season completely blind then be sure to bookmark this article and return once The Legend of Vox Machina S3 has completely released by October 24th.

What Fans of The Legend of Vox Machina S3 Can Look Forward To

To begin Matthew Mercer, CCO and Dungeon Master at Critical Role, took a moment to explain the premise of the upcoming third season. "Vox Machina are still rallying against the Chroma Conclave, they managed to fell one of their numbers but others exist. There's a possible dubious conversation with one of them, there's all sorts of weird mingled stuff there, but as the search for these Vestigaes continues, part of it leads them to hell."

Talking further about Vox Machina's travels to hell Mercer expanded, "It was part of the campaign to a degree and we've been able to expand upon that in some really fun and unique and surprising ways. We've gotten to spotlight some of the non-Vox Machina characters and spend more time with them."

"For those not familiar with the campaign there will be a lot of really cool familiar moments and some very unique and surprising ones" - Matthew Mercer

Excited for what fans, new and old, are going to see, Liam O'Brien talked a bit about the anticipation that the cast is feeling. "There are massive moments that are going to sideswipe the audience and we're just waiting in the wings for it to slide onto stage," he gestured with his hands, something coming into frame. "You're not going to be disappointed."

A bit of a more direct tease, Taliesin Jaffe jumped in to say "I'm excited for the cleverest thing for Laura Bailey has said in Campaign One and that's all I'm going to say." As I, and I'm sure others in the room, began scrambling through their memories of what he could be referencing Sam Riegal asked "Is it a poop joke?", Jaffe quickly swatted away that idea. While we still can't be too sure what moment Jaffe was thinking of we at least know it's not that.

A Lot Of The Same, But Also New

Talking deeper about the changes that some fans of the original campaign may recognize, Willingham explained that "Season Three is a big divergence for our characters. I think part of it, as we were considering story beats and how we want the show to approach this culmination with the Chroma Conclave we're always looking for ways to improve or economize, or even put a new shine on some moments now that we have a second chance at telling them, but we're also trying to tee things up for down the road, not just in this show but also in the Mighty Nein. We've had years and years of gameplay since these episodes were played the very first time and so we're always trying to go back and seed things early if we can and provide something new for an audience that thinks they know what to expect, we can unsettle them just a bit."

When asking the cast who felt they had the largest divergence Marisha Ray volunteered Johnson's character Pike Trickfoot. "We definitely did a lot of adjusting to Pike and I think that continues throughout the rest of the shows." During the original campaign due to scheduling conflicts with Johnson's work on Blindspot Pike would frequently come in and out of story arcs.

"I know personally I'm so excited to just retroactively have more Ashley Johnson" - Marisha Ray

Johnson talked about how she was excited that there are so many moment now "specifically with Pike. Getting to see where we could have gone with the story had I been at the table. Also where we are going with the story in the animated series and how Pike can sort of fit in there. We looked for ways in a series with hundreds of hours that we have to truncate into an episode or 12 episodes and it feels really cool because I feel like I get to do things I really didn't get to do at the table and to get to go to places. I get to go to hell which is going to be really fun."

"I think that the character we got to alter the most is Vox Machina as a group," Riegel began "from the campaign to the screen we go to different places in different orders, we split up in different ways that we didn't do in the campaign, we reunite in different ways and so really the whole linear arc of the season differs from the campaign a lot." 

"Also characters that aren't main Vox Machina characters like Kima and Allura, we focus on them in ways this season that they never got that spotlight in the campaign and it's really fun to look at these characters, beloved characters, that didn't get their own campaign episode but now they get their own episode in the animated series."

Recording Trials, Tribulations, and Tomfoolery From A Decade Ago

"We get to pick and choose where we want to go and the moments we get to highlight," Jaffe began to explain on the topic of time in the recording booth. He highlighted just how different the situation was when they were roleplaying at a table making decisions on the fly and with the show they're able to revisit every moment and dial it up for drama.

"It is this delight going in there and having that memory of the first time we were pulling this out of our butts, now allowing it to become drama, and comedy, and knowing that when we actually see it on screen it's somehow always better than it was in my head, other than in my head Vex is always hotter" Jaffe added, playing on the romance between his character, Percy de Rolo, and Bailey's character, Vex'ahlia.

"It's really amazing to be able to give these moments to artists and then just watch it blossom"

Speaking about the experience in the booth, reliving emotions from years ago Ray jumped into the discussion "I think at the table too, when we're in these moments all of these emotions are real. We're acting in real-time so going back and revisiting them it's still just as emotionally impactful and it is not uncommon to cry… a lot… and then you're exhausted for the rest of the day because you cried in your morning session. It's still so emotionally palpable ten years later almost."

Bailey remarked that she believes that when they were playing this game of Dungeons & Dragons a decade ago they didn't realize just how much emotion they could bring to the story. "We were a little timid about fully going there emotionally, it's so wonderful in the animated series to allow ourselves to dive in to those really deep moments."

As each cast member became quite introspective of the emotions that each of their characters had gone through and the effort it took to portray that O'Brien also highlighted the time in the recording booth that they were able to spend together. "We have so many responsibilities too, we're organizing so much and tracking so much and writing and producing, the time we get together with a ring of microphones and we get to make each other laugh and cry is a playspace, a place of dream and imagination. I'm so excited the mornings I get to wake up and we're heading off to the studios, I don't ever want it to end, I love being in the Holodeck."

Titmouse Always Brings Their Best

What you see on the screen of Season 3 continues to push the envelope in terms of adult animation. Speaking on their collaboration with Titmouse – whose work includes not only The Legend of Vox Machina, but also Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and The Boys Presents: Diabolical – Willingham made sure to point out all of the incredible work being done.

"We have amazing partners with Titmouse Animation and it's been important to us form the beginning to really push what this Adult animated show can be so we have incredible episodic directors, board artists, supervising producers that come in and help us push the envelope at every turn. Even when we think we write something that's un-producable or un-animatable they kinda look back and say 'bet' and just blow us away."

Ray added a note based on not only how violent the show is, but how the relationships between different characters begin to bloom this season "The romance was there in the original, we just couldn't show it because of Twitch ToS"

The cast burst into laughter making jokes about how without the ToS there would have been constant 30 minute romance scenes.

"I think it was heavily implied that Vex and Percy were doing so much boning." Ray continued "So now we just get to show it!"

Talking more about the core of the relationships, and a bit further away from the boning Jaffe brought up that he and Bailey had talked about their character's relationships at the time and were proud because "it's rare in television to see what feels like a real relationship and this is something I'm really proud of in what we're doing. These feel, at least to me, a lot more honest in the sorts of things that people talk about and deal with in especially stressful relationships."

The Music Of Vox Machina

From music's original tie to Vox Machina, in Scanlan's bardic performances we've seen hit songs like "The Legend of Vox Machina", "Scanlan's Sphinx Song", and "Pull My Beads of Love" come out of each season of the show.

I wanted to ask what the process was like for identifying where a song should be added and what the process was like to create them. Sam Reigel, Scanlan's creator and voice actor, explained "In season 3 we're going to continue what we've done in prior seasons where there are fun songs that help to carry the vibe and there are some important songs that deal with plot and are integral and this season we actually rely on Matt Mercer more to provide us with some vocals this season in two key moments in the Season. One you might not even recognize that it's Matt's voice but it's in a pivotal emotionally gutting moment in the season and Matt sings a song that will, I hope, break your heart and then he gets to sing in character also in a totally different episode so I'm excited. I'm always excited when we get songs from characters that are not me, although I love me I also love these guys and they're so talented."

A few chuckles were heard from other members of the cast including Ashley Johnson and Travis Willingham as Reigel professed his love for himself.

Mercer added that from his perspective "A lot of it was just playful banter in the writers room about what moments could be musical. The majority of it was Sam and the folks from production…" Mercer trailed off for a moment before doubling back "Mostly Sam and Peter basically coming up with ridiculous ideas of where to fit songs both mid-episode versus end-credit bits."

The Mighty Nein Isn't Too Far Away

While the conversation mostly focused on Vox Machina the cast of Critical Role wasn't going to get away without a further hint about the upcoming Mighty Nein TV Show, also coming to Amazon Prime.

After releasing an early animatic earlier this year when asked if any more news could be given about it's release Bailey and O'Brien deflected into playful banter between their characters Jester Lavorre and Caleb Widogast about how many dick jokes there will be.

Locking in for a more serious answer O'Brien rattled off a few themes for the season including "Spy thriller, grief, thick action, budding love." From that Bailey added that "it's a story from a different perspective, that we didn't get to see in the campaign."

Willingham also added "One of the things we love about The Legend of Vox Machina is that we get to spend so much time with our antagonists, more than maybe what we did during the live stream. One of the things we're looking forward to the most is seeing some of these villains that we will come to learn and to hate, to meet and maybe even love in some cases. As we've teased before we're visiting these characters from more of a session zero perspective which is how they've all started, come together as a group, and what it is that keeps them together. For some of the audience this will be entirely new material. Some things they may have heard of but never seen before. We're really excited to bring that to the screen for the first time."