Meet Critical Role's gang of misfits in Vox Machina spinoff

article by Nick Romano

Members of Critical Role, as well as new showrunner Tasha Huo, preview what's to come in the "Legend of Vox Machina" spinoff series.

The heroes known collectively as the Mighty Nein are indeed mighty... but they're not exactly nine.

That's one of the many inside jokes among the members of Critical Role, the Dungeons & Dragons troupe of actors that became an online sensation for livestreams of their fantasy role-playing campaigns, which are now adapted into two animated shows for Amazon's Prime Video.

After three successful seasons (and a fourth on the way) of The Legend of Vox Machina, based on the group's first table-top adventure, The Mighty Nein now adapts the core events of Campaign 2. And, sure enough, Entertainment Weekly's exclusive first look at the spinoff show features six (not nine!) of the new band of misfits... at least for now.

"Not to spoil anything for the audience, but all of your favorite gags, all of your favorite inside jokes and weird things that happened during the Campaign 2 live-play, we love those things too, and we're going to try to preserve as many of those as possible," Critical Role's Sam Riegel, an actor and executive producer on both Vox Machina and The Mighty Nein shows, tells Entertainment Weekly. "I won't say how and when that joke is made, but if you loved it in the campaign, I guarantee it will make an appearance in the animated series."

The Mighty Nein takes place in the same fantasy world as The Legend of Vox Machina, called Exandria. But instead of the land of Tal'Dorei, the series hones in on a completely different continent, known as Wildemount, which hosts the Dwendalian Empire to the west, the Kryn Dynasty to the east, and the Menagerie Coast along the sea. The show also takes place many years after the events of Vox Machina. However, Tasha Huo, The Mighty Nein showrunner and EP, promises "a lot of fun intersections" between the two animated series.

"We want to make sure that everyone understands those two stories do happen in the same world at the same time, even though they're separated by, I think, 20 years," she says.

The members of Critical Role, all of whom worked on The Legend of Vox Machina, now return as very different characters.

As seen in EW's sneak peek, Riegel voices Nott The Brave, a foul-mouthed alcoholic goblin girl who's a master of stealth and crossbow; Liam O’Brien voices Caleb Widogast, a disheveled human wizard adept at fire magic; Marisha Ray voices Beauregard Lionett, a human monk of the Cobalt Soul order who's part MMA fighter, part kick-ass detective; Laura Bailey voices Jester Lavorre, a blue-skinned tiefling and a prankster whose best friend is an invisible god named the Traveler; Travis Willingham voices Fjord Stone, an orphaned half-orc sailor who washes ashore after a shipwreck with mysterious magical powers; and Taliesin Jaffe voices Mollymauk Tealeaf, a purple-skinned tiefling who serves as a flamboyant tarot reader for a traveling carnival.

Not seen is the character played by another crucial Critical Role member; Ashley Johnson will voice the role of Yasha Nydoorin, a barbarian woman and a roving mercenary from the wastes of Xhorhas in the Kryn Dynasty.

"We really had an opportunity to kick things up a notch in terms of character building, world building, and storytelling techniques," Riegel says. "It has echoes of Vox Machina, obviously because it's based in the same world and made by the same people, but I think it's going to scratch itches that Vox Machina doesn't scratch."

Willingham, who also serves as an EP on top of his Fjord Stone role, adds, "We like to scratch all sorts of itches. With The Legend of Vox Machina, we started with our heroes altogether at once. We really want to buy into who these characters are from The Mighty Nein and how they come together slowly — as pairs, sometimes staying lone wolves for as long as possible, and really fighting for what it is they're looking to achieve in the story. That's the thing that really is going to separate Mighty Nein from Vox. You'll see all of them fighting for their own goals and really resisting working together as a team for quite a long while."

Unlike the characters from LVM, Huo points to something she loved from watching Critical Role's original Mighty Nein livestream campaign: all the secrets the characters keep from one another as the plot progresses.

"A big thing that drew me to that show was just the trauma of all the characters," she explains. "So the show reflects a more mature, more elevated storytelling. There's more drama, there is more filmmaking involved. We really try to treat the show like a live-action show, which is tonally different than Vox Machina, but still keeping within the same world."

In terms of what story the show is adapting with this first season, fans will surely have theories once they get a glimpse of Essek Thelyss, a drow wizard from the Kryn Dynasty.

Matt Mercer, who created the world of Exandria and serves as Critical Role's de facto Dungeon Master, voices Essek, a crucial figure during a certain conflict that involves the Kryn Dynasty, the larger Empire in Wildemount, and a stolen artifact.

"One of the things Matt harped on over the years is that, as much as everybody loves their favorite hot boy, Essek Thelyss, he for a very long time was not a very good person," Willingham comments.

Similar to how LVM adapted the more nefarious characters to the screen, like the Briarwoods, The Mighty Nein will expand upon Essek's story, showing story material that happened "off screen" (metaphorically speaking, since there are no screens in a table-top campaign). "You'll see the machinations both happening in the Empire and the Dynasty, all the things moving behind the scenes, and really who was Essek," Willingham continues. "How did he get to be in the place where he was, moving these large pieces and affecting a large portion of the world in The Mighty Nein?"

As for The Legend of Vox Machina season 4, which was announced for renewal in October, Riegel, Willingham, and the rest of the Critical Role crew are still cranking away. When EW speaks with the Mighty Nein team, they had just completed a new recording session "with someone in New York" in the wee hours of that morning.

"I think there's some announcements coming at San Diego," Riegel teases. "I don't know about release dates yet, but season 4 is awesome. It's so cool, and there's lots of twists and turns coming, lots of unexpected new characters."

In true LVM style, Willingham jokes, "Certainly no musical numbers of any kind."