Critical Role

Critical Role is a weekly web series of voice actors playing Dungeon & Dragons. The series airs live on the Critical Role Twitch channel on Thursdays at 7pm (Los Angeles time), and episodes are archived on the Critical Role website and the Geek & Sundry website.

The first campaign of the group known as Vox Machina started at home in 2012. In 2015 they were approached by Felicia Day to stream their campaign live on the Geek & Sundry twitch. On March 12, 2015 they began streaming their first live episode,. After 2,5 years and eight chapters the adventures of Vox Machina came to an end on October 12, 2017 in.

On January 11, 2018 their second campaign started. The show continues 20 years after the end of the Vox Machina Campaign with the story of the Mighty Nein, which is currently on going. The Mighty Nein’s story starts with, but the group did a session 0 before the stream for the players to get a feel for their characters and the setting they would be playing.

After episode they parted ways with Geek & Sundry and launched their own Twitch and YouTube channels, and started to self-produce new shows and content. Now the live broadcasts of the shows and VODs are airing exclusively on the Critical Role's channels.

The Game Before the Show
Although Critical Role as a show did not begin until March 12 2015, the campaign itself started on December 8, 2012. The very first session consisted of Liam O'Brien, Sam Riegel, Laura Bailey, Travis Willingham, Taliesin Jaffe, and Orion Acaba as players, with Matthew Mercer as the Dungeon Master. All the players began with the same characters they had in the first episode of Critical Role, with the exception of Taliesin who played a dragonborn paladin for their first session. Marisha Ray and Ashley Johnson would join the game in later sessions.

Cast
&rarr; Main article: Category:Cast.

Main Cast

 * Laura Bailey as Vex'ahlia/Jester Lavorre
 * Liam O'Brien as Vax'ildan/Caleb Widogast
 * Taliesin Jaffe as Percy/Mollymauk Tealeaf and Caduceus Clay
 * Ashley Johnson as Pike Trickfoot/Yasha
 * Marisha Ray as Keyleth/Beauregard
 * Sam Riegel as Scanlan Shorthalt/Taryon Darrington and Nott
 * Travis Willingham as Grog/Fjord
 * Matthew Mercer as the Dungeon Master
 * Orion Acaba as Tiberius Stormwind (formerly)

On October 28th, 2015, at 6:40 PST, it was announced live on the Geek & Sundry Twitch channel that due to a mutual parting of ways, Orion would no longer appear on Critical Role. Matt Mercer repeated the announcement at the beginning of. Orion last appeared in.

Guest Stars
&rarr; Main article: Category:Guest Stars. Occasionally a guest star or two will join the main cast. These guests play their own characters who encounter Vox Machina and The Mighty Nein while on their own individual journeys and decide to team up with our protagonists for as long as their goals are aligned.


 * Mary Elizabeth McGlynn as Zahra Hydris
 * Felicia Day as Lyra
 * Will Friedle as Kashaw Vesh
 * Wil Wheaton as Thorbir Falbek
 * Kit Buss as Lillith Daturai
 * Jason Charles Miller as Garthok
 * Chris Hardwick as Gern Blanston
 * Chris Perkins as Shale and Spurt
 * Patrick Rothfuss as Kerrek
 * Noelle Stevenson as Tova
 * Jon Heder as Lionel Gayheart
 * Darin De Paul as Sprigg
 * Joe Manganiello as Arkhan
 * Khary Payton as Shakäste
 * Mark Hulmes as Calianna
 * Ashly Burch as Keg
 * Sumalee Montano as Nila
 * Deborah Ann Woll as Twiggy

Mary Elizabeth McGlynn and Will Friedle have returned on several different occasions to reprise their roles as Zahra and Kashaw. Patrick Rothfuss also returned as Kerrek for several episodes near the end of the Chroma Conclave story arc. Ashly Burch and Sumalee Montano have both made several appearances as Keg, and Nila during the Iron Shepherds arc. Chris Perkins has appeared as two characters, Shale and Spurt, one in each campaign, respectively.

Episodes
&rarr; Main article: List of episodes.

Specials
&rarr; Main article: Specials. The cast will occasionally play a one-shot game, often with several guests and different Dungeon Master/game master. Not all one-shots use the Dungeons & Dragons game system.

Winter's Crest Festival comic
&rarr; Main article: Winter's Crest Festival comic. Two of the regular cast members, Marisha Ray and Taliesin Jaffe, wrote a comic series with art by Wendy Sullivan Green. It told the story of Vox Machina's first Winter's Crest festival.

Talks Machina
&rarr; Main article: Talks Machina. After, Geek & Sundry began airing a show called Talks Machina which serves as an after-show for Critical Role. Hosted by Brian Wayne Foster, Talks Machina is a weekly show airing on Tuesdays where Brian and several guests talk about the most recent episode of Critical Role and answer questions submitted by fans. The guests usually consist of the regular cast of Critical Role, but guest players, behind-the-scenes people, and fans such as Andrew from CritRoleStats have also appeared on Talks Machina.



Podcast
All the main episodes of Critical Role through Campaign 2, Episode 51 were released as a podcast version on the Geek & Sundry official website.

As of February 21, 2019, starting with Episode 52 of Campaign 2, podcasts can be found through the Critical Role podcast network. The new podcast links can be found though the Podcast section of the Critical Role website and the podcast can also be found via Podbean, iTunes, Google Podcasts, and on Spotify. This also includes Talks Machina (from ), and the Specials (from ).



Vox Machina Origins
&rarr; Main article: Vox Machina Origins. On September 20, 2017, Dark Horse Comics released a six-issue comic series titled "Vox Machina Origins" covering how some of the members of Vox Machina came to meet each other. On July 10, 2019, Dark Horse began releasing Vox Machina Origins Series II, another six-part miniseries continuing the adventures of the fledgling group.

Critical Recap
Critical Recap, hosted by Dani Carr, quickly summarizes the events of the previous week's episode of Critical Role, as well as offering her own thoughts on the events that have transpired and what they may mean for the future. The recap started with and was aired on the Geek & Sundry Twitch channel before the live streams. After the split from Geek & Sundry, new episodes of Critical Recap are premiering on Critical Role's YouTube channel every Tuesday, while a rebroadcast airs on the Critical Role Twitch channel immediately before the Critical Role live stream on Thursdays.



The Legend of Vox Machina
&rarr; Main article: The Legend of Vox Machina. The Legend of Vox Machina an animated series of Vox Machina that is still in production, funded by a kickstarter campaign of the same name.

The Chronicles of Exandria
The Chronicles of Exandria is an art book that features artwork from the community. It includes backstories for Vox Machina, as well as some of the NPCs. They have published two books and a third is announced.
 * Vol. I: The Tale of Vox Machina: Published in November, 2017
 * Vol. II: The Tale of Vox Machina: Published in November, 2018 (Deluxe Edition)
 * The Mighty Nein: Expected late 2019

Miniature figures
Steamforged Games(SFG) raised approx $1.2M in a Kickstarter campaign for a collection of miniature figures based on player characters (PCs) and non-player characters (NPCs) from both Critical Role campaigns.

Merch
Critical Role has two online shops where official merch is sold.
 * USA shop
 * UK shop

Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting
&rarr; Main article: Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting. The Critical Role: Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting is a reference book for D&D groups written by Matthew Mercer with the help of James Haeck. It was published in 2017 by Green Ronin Publishing and is available in both hardcover and PDF formats.

Related shows

 * All Work No Play
 * Between the Sheets
 * #EverythingIsContent
 * Handbooker Helper
 * MAME Drop
 * Pub Draw
 * Travis Willingham's Yee-Haw Game Ranch‏

Community
Soon after the stream started, fans of the show, known as Critters, began to show their support. First, by sending food during the stream and soon after, fan art, creations, and gifts. The cast would open these gifts and thank their fans at the end of a gaming session and the segment began to be known as Critmas.

Critters
"Critters" is a term that refers to the fans of Critical Role. The cast openly interacts with their fans via social media. In return, Critters often show their appreciation by sending gifts and letters to Matt and the players.

The fans can submit fan art, gifs and photo's of Cosplay to partake in the art reel, weekly art gallery on the website, monthly cosplay gallery on critrole.com, and for Cosplay/Fan Art of the Week Contests for Talks Machina. The winners receive Critical Role or Wyrmwood Gaming merchandise.

Charities
Throughout the years Critical Role has partaken in charity drives. Beside the drives each member of the cast has chosen a charity to individually represent to encouraged their fans to donate to them instead of sending gifts.
 * Ashley: Amnesty
 * Laura: My Friend’s Place
 * Liam: The Planetary Society
 * Marisha: The Nature Conservancy
 * Matt: First Book
 * Taliesin: First Place for Youth
 * Travis: Operation Supply Drop
 * Sam: Pablove Foundation

826LA
During each broadcast, viewers are encouraged to donate to a charity, usually 826LA, and donators are thanked at the end of the session. During Hoomanism Appreciation Week in September 2015, the cast of Critical Role visited 826LA, where they presented creative director Joel Arquillos with a check for $15,000.

Extra Life
Many of the cast members of Critical Role were involved with the Geek & Sundry Extra Life charity drive in October 2015, including a special episode,  featuring the Vox Moronica crew.

Pablove Foundation
Sam and the cast had joined forces with Blair Herter, to help raise awareness and support for the Pablove Foundation. The Pablove Foundation is an charity dedicated to childhood cancer support through improving the lives of children with cancer through the arts, as well as investing in underfunded research projects. A few rewards were setup and reached:
 * $20,000: with Sam as the Dungeon Master;
 * $50,000: the ability to fund one research grant distributed to a credible research team actively working to cure childhood cancer;
 * $100,000: and a completely funded Shutterbugs Summer Camp.

Operation Supply Drop
Travis and members of Critical Role joined Operation Supply Drop Gaming Development Director, Jeff Bartom to provide Veterans with games and other entertainment items. In addition to this Supply Drop, they partnered with OSD with a goal to raise $50,000 for the military community.

Red Nose Day
Critical Role has joined the 2019 Red Nose Day campaign with Stephen Colbert, to end childhood poverty. Matthew Mercer ran a one-on-one mini-adventure. Donors could support Red Nose Day by shaping Stephen’s adventure through their donations. As a donor to the campaign, donors decided Stephen’s character class, his companion, his legendary weapon to be sought, and the villain. The story elements that gained the most donations were used in the mini-adventure. At total of $122,362 was raised to end childhood poverty.

Critical Role studio
The Critical Role company, Critical Role Productions LLC, was set up during the split from Legendary Digital Networks.

As of 2019, Travis Willingham serves as chief executive officer, Matthew Mercer as chief creative officer, Marisha Ray as creative director, Ed Lopez as chief operating officer, Rachel Romero as senior vice president of marketing, and Ben Van Der Fluit as vice president of business development.