Taliesin Jaffe


 * This page is about the actor. For the character from a one-shot campaign, see Taliesin Jaffe (character).



Taliesin Jaffe is a voice actor and director who plays the character of Caduceus Clay on Critical Role. He played Percival de Rolo in the first campaign, and originally Mollymauk Tealeaf in the second campaign. He was also the Dungeon Master for the "Thursday by Night" one-shot episodes​​​​​​.

RPG Background
Taliesin's first role playing experience was the Generic Universal RolePlaying System (GURPS) in high school when he was thirteen years old. He also hosted a Rifts game, a World of Darkness game, Paranoia, and HoL: Human Occupied Landfill. He gave HoL core rulebooks to now-Dungeon Master Matthew Mercer for his birthday.

Before Mercer's Pathfinder-based Exandria campaign (which evolved into 5th edition-based Critical Role), fellow voice actor and player Marisha Ray and he were in another pen-and-paper RPG game together.

Critical Role
In the first session that Mercer's Exandria group played together, Taliesin played a dragonborn paladin. Because he was one of the more experienced players at the time, his purpose for that first game was to try to ensure that everyone else stayed alive.

When the players decided to continue playing past the first session, Taliesin created a new character and chose the gunslinger Pathfinder class because it was interesting to him and he felt it could fill a role that did not exist within the group.

When converting the campaign from Pathfinder to 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons in preparation for beginning the Critical Role livestreaming webseries, Matt had to create a custom martial archetype for the fighter class, since Percy was a gunslinger. Matt and Taliesin sat down together and spent a full day to convert the character and all of his stats and abilities.

When asked which character from Vox Machina he would like to play if he was not Percy, Taliesin chose Tiberius.

He is often called the "Anti-Wheaton" by other members of the cast, as he rolls frequent critical successes.

During Percy's resurrection ritual in, Taliesin was watching from another room. After the ritual succeeded, Matt revealed that Taliesin was the one who ultimately decided if Percy would want to come back, depending on the actions of Vox Machina and their players during the ritual.

Main Storyline

 * Percival de Rolo, human gunslinger (The Campaign of Vox Machina)
 * Mollymauk Tealeaf, tiefling blood hunter (Campaign 2: The Mighty Nein)
 * Caduceus Clay, firbolg cleric (Campaign 2: The Mighty Nein)

One-Shots and Special Episodes

 * Mezek, goblin monk
 * Taliesin Jaffe (character), human warlock ( and )
 * Waffle, a bear
 * Bundle, dwarf priest
 * Arthur Fizzlebottom

Episodes DMed by Taliesin

 * "Critical Role One-Shot: Call of Cthulu: Shadow of the Crystal Palace" (Sx46)
 * "Critical Role One-Shot: Call of Cthulu: Shadow of the Crystal Palace" (Sx46)
 * "Critical Role One-Shot: Call of Cthulu: Shadow of the Crystal Palace" (Sx46)

Trivia

 * On Talks Machina, the host Brian Wayne Foster likes to "#ThankMyGuests" with names that are either mispronounced or wordplay that sounds close to their names. Here are the names for Taliesin Jaffe so far:
 * Taliesin Jefe
 * Talisman Jafar
 * Tailspin Jefe
 * Talellujah Jafar
 * Owlskin Taffy
 * Allison Daffy
 * Callous Men Laughing
 * Towelspin Snappy
 * Tallest Damn Giraffe Meme
 * Tell My Son Pepe
 * Trammelspin Crafty
 * Tally Ho Jazz Fiend
 * In Jail Again Sassy
 * Tell Us Our Fortunes
 * Tailspin Jafar
 * Wall-pin Happy
 * Past Has Been Daffy
 * Tapestry's Chafing
 * Drunkenly Smash-y


 * Talisien officiated Matthew Mercer and Marisha Ray's wedding.
 * Talisien suffers from Essential Tremor.