Critical Role, a show where I’m told some “nerdy-ass voice actors” play Dungeons & Dragons, is the main reason I’m into D&D and TTRPGs today—and while I haven’t kept up with its third campaign, I’ve watched the adventures of Vox Machina and the Mighty Nein in their entirety.
As I’ve mentioned in the past, it’s been wild to see Critical Role go from a casually-streamed game with a small enough audience to accept public pizza donations, into a genuine multi-platform monolith.
One fun consequence of its rockstar popularity is The Legend of Vox Machina animated series, which primarily happened because Critical Role asked their fans if they’d like to see the first campaign animated and they said yes, please, here’s $1 million dollars in one hour ($11 million total).
The show has already had its first and second seasons, following the OG stream’s Briarwood arc, as well as roughly a third of its Chroma Conclave storyline. We found out last month it’s going back in for a third dip—there’s still dragons to slay, after all. Courtesy of an IGN exclusive, we also know exactly when—October 3. The site also shared a look at the show’s fresh intro sequence, which you can watch below.
The intro opens on Vox Machina walking and laughing before Vax’ildan, the chosen baby of the goddess of death, turns around to see her porcelain mask wielding a thousand strings of fate—kicking off a flashback sequence that lasts for the rest of the intro.
The mentally well-adjusted, normal, and emotionally fine gunslinger Percy burns up the schematics for his weapon, now that he’s past his goth—I mean, vengeance—phase. However, we also see Ripley loom threateningly in the ashes. Mild spoilers from the livestream, but yeah—we’re not done with her, yet.
Then there’s the heartwarming sight of Keyleth, who will live for thousands of years as a druid, slowly left alone as her party members fade one by one—a fact that definitely doesn’t still haunt me after the stream’s original epilogue.
As for the rest, it’s mostly group shots and action scenes from the party of Vox Machina, putting their freshly-earned Vestiges of Divergence to good use. We’re also shown a hint of what happens after the current Chroma Conclave arc—straight-up spoilers for that to follow.
The blindfolded individual pondering the world’s most ominous orb is almost absolutely Delilah Briarwood from Episode 100 of the livestreamed campaign, Unfinished Business. In it, the party fails to stop the resurrected villain from opening a portal to the Shadowfell to resurrect Vecna, who is bad news for just about everybody.
To see it here makes me wonder whether that episode—and the massacre that follows it—will be a part of Season 3, or saved as a cliffhanger for Season 4. If so, it’s going to be one hell of a drop to dangle over. While I’d personally still love to see a Critical Role game at some point, I remain thoroughly excited to see the old crew return for another gorgeously-animated retelling.
