Before I get into the meat and juice of The Legend of Vox Machina here’s a little back story. If there is one thing that has stayed consistent throughout my and my friends lives as we’ve grown up together, it’s our love for gaming. Whether that takes the form of video games, card games, board games, tabletop games or pen-and-paper roleplaying games; games have always been a core part of our friendship and has continually kept us bonded together.
After years of playing just about anything under the sun, we finally started talking about dipping our toes into the fantastical world of Dungeon & Dragons a few years ago, which is where my obsession with Critical Role began. For those of you who don’t know what Critical Role is, it is arguably the worlds biggest and most well-known web series that is entirely based on Dungeons & Dragons.
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Critical Role quickly became popular due to amazing voice acting by the host Matthew Mercer as well as the rest of the cast Ashley Johnson, Travis Willingham, Laura Bailey, Liam O’Brien, Taliesin Jaffe, Marisha Ray, and Sam Riegel, all of whom are reprising their roles in The Legend of Vox Machina, an animated version of Critical Roles first campaign.
The Legend of Vox Machina is set within the world of Exandria and follows a group of adventures through their epic journey and their relationships with each other. You’ll get to know the cleric Pike, a beloved gnome. The barbarian known as Grog; a human gunslinger known only as Percy; Vax’ildan and Vax’ahlia, who are half-elf twins; Scanlan the gnome who is also the group’s bard as well as Keyleth, the half-elf druid.
While The Legend of Vox Machina is based on the campaign Mathew Mercer created specifically for Critical Role, the show’s first three episodes are a completely original story created to help introduce newcomers to the world and the adventurers. If you’ve been a loyal Critical Role viewer, don’t feel left out. The first three episodes still have many easter eggs and jokes that cater specifically to fans of the source material.
Over the last few years, Critical Roll has raised the bar for storytelling and performances within Dungeons & Dragons while also doing wonders at making it accessible to newcomers. When I first started watching Critical Role, I didn’t understand anything about Dungeons & Dragons, but because of the fun way they handled everything, I never felt lost, confused or like I didn’t belong at their table.
The Legend of Vox Machina is no different. You don’t have to play Dungeons & Dragons to enjoy the show, and you won’t ever find yourself confused just because you aren’t familiar with the campaign. At its core, The Legend of Vox Machina is an animated fantasy show for adults set within the world of Dungeons & Dragons.
The first three episodes of The Legend of Vox Machina will be arriving on Prime Video on the 28th of January. After that, they will drop three episodes weekly with 12 episodes in total. If you’ve always been interested in the types of stories that can be told within Dungeons & Dragons but feel overwhelmed jumping into Critical Roles 115 odd episodes on YouTube. In that case, The Legend of Vox Machina couldn’t be a more perfect place to start. Likewise, if you’re just in the mood for some wacky fun with a stellar voice cast, you won’t go wrong either.