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I remember Matt being so disappointed they killed Sylas so fast, Keyleth’s solarbeam rolled really high and he was obliterated before he could use all his skills.
I haven't watched the streams, but this was apparently a running thing with the Briarwoods? Like, every encounter with them that the show adapted, Vox Machina actually got really close to killing them handily because of good rolls and Matt had to bail them out a lot.
@@officiallyjan8596 IIRC They defeated Silas at least once before, but he became a mist (Vamp ability) and escaped. The only way to kill him was with running water or sun. At the Zig fight, they downed him again (not that quickly) and then Kiki solar beamed his mist form to kill him for good. In fact, Vex got the killing shot on Silas, and then Delilah got a vengeance boner for Vex. Vex was the one who was downed in the fight and not Kiki.
They defeated both at the feast and they had to teleport twice to get away. I don't specifically remember the end of the other fights with them but they definitely lost a few times before actually dying.
@@balkhazzargaming5373 I can’t imagine banning counterspell. It’s such an important resource for magic combat! Taking tools away from players because they perform well is never the answer; the DM needs to step up to bat and write more dynamic encounters that can’t be solved with one spell
Oh, also Matt(The DM) never was like, "Okay roll to see if you fade". Pike's astral form did fade and at some really crucial times, but only because in those moments, Skype lost connection.
@@amodelmannequin That cant be why it faded in this instance. Remember, Vex reached into the bag of holding which wouldnt be a thing in an anti magic field. It even made the telltale tinkling sound they've used every time someone reached into the bag of holding in this show.
@@transientanus that's just a plot hole. Unless they've changed the show's verson of the Spinning Ball of Death's rules to "only healing magic", which I find unlikely considering future events.
Yeah, Vecna is “The Whispered One” but they don’t refer to any of the gods by their in-lore names because of copyright. Pike never calls her Sarenrae (or Raei if you’ve read EGtW), only “Everlight”, The Rebels of Whitestone mentioned the Dawnfather, but never Pelor, etc.
And Goliaths are referred to as half-giants, and most of the classes aren't referred to by name(though that seems more like a way to make things feel more realistic, like you wouldn't call yourself a rogue or a barbarian, you would just explain your skill sets as being really good at sneaking or hitting really hard, respectively. Exceptions would probably be things like bards, druids, and wizards, who's job descriptions match the class name)
I wouldn't be surprised if they do pay a license fee for Vecna. Even in campaign they avoid his name because saying it brings his attention, so it was mostly forgotten. So maybe they still leave it as is then get an epic reveal, name included. Imo that would be a pretty sweet choice for one name to get a license for
@@chipsalom even with license fee deep down matt doesnt want to be leashed by dnd even more then it is now. despite being known as a popular dungeon master which is a trademark title for dnd he is deep down a game master. he is super open to play and showcase other trpgs then just dnd but right now with the show popularity and ppl mainly only know dnd he has to showcase that. wil lsay this: for sure one day either he wants to fully end/complete critical roll and the campaign world they are in or sell off the rights to that world to wotc. that way with that leash loosened now he can go and play/showcase other trpgs. most likely maybe go back to pathfinder for 2e or something else that catch his attention like fate, old school essentials/dungeon crawl classics, blades in the dark or other.
"I broke the world for us" That was & still is one of my many favourite quotes from Campaign 1, because we all have someone we would break the world for.
Percy's "angry" voice is Taliesin himself but when it distorts its mixed with Matthew Mercers voice who voices Sylas but also various others. In the subtitles there are some explanation to what is happening
To clarify: when Cassandra said "we are his blood" she was echoing what Delilah said to Sylas earlier in reference to The Whispered One. Since all the necromantic rituals to call upon him involve blood it is not a leap to guess that by "giving" their blood in rituals to him that his followers metaphorically become "of the same blood" as him. The DeRolo family does not share any actual part of their bloodline with either The Whispered One or the Briarwoods.
One of my favourite things about this show is how unique some of the choreography is compared a lot of other animated shows. Like the way Grog moves when swinging his massive axe, or Sylas's quick slashes with his blade, or how mobile Pike was
Vecna is an Old School D&D character (Original Owner of the Hand and Eye), a Lich from the World of Greyhawk who eventually ascended to Godhood. Matt's Exandria Pantheon is a mishmash of Deities from numerous DnD and Pathfinder settings.
Yeah, in this campaign at this point The Whispered One is still technically a lich that is attempting to ascend to Godhood...he's not a god himself yet which is why the Briarwoods are able to communicate with him in the way that they are... He is NOT sealed behind the divine gate like all of the other gods in Exandria... But yeah Matt took the majority of the pantheon visuals and personalities from the Dawn War Pantheon.... The only deity that's not from the Dawn War Pantheon is Pikes Sarenrae (Sarenrae is the Pathfinder name and Raei is her Dawn War Pantheon name) mainly because Ashley Johnson wanted to keep using the Pathfinder name when they switched from Pathfinder to D&D 5e. 🤷♀️
To be fair, it is a mystery at first who The Whispered One is and he is referred to as The Whispered One in the beginning of the campaign ...but the group does eventually learn what his actual name is... But The Whispered One is technically the first titled god in Exandria. In campaign 2, Matt decides to retitle ALL of the gods instead of using their copyrighted Dawn War Pantheon names. And so they're most likely just going to stick with the god titles and NEVER use any of their copyrighted names in the show. But yeah Vecna was originally referred to as a title for like mystery purposes in campaign one ... Though I'm sure Taliesin probably guessed who the big bad of the campaign was before anybody else because he has the most experience playing D&D other than the dungeon master himself... I'd be very surprised if Taliesin hadn't fought Vecna before in previous campaigns he's been in lol. He's a pretty classic D&D big bad.
The music has been pretty amazing through the series, but in this episode, Neal Acree kicked it up several notches. My favorite scene is Keyleth and her "being the light" moment. When the chorus and the drums really get going, and it all just builds so beautifully and powerfully, combined with the broad shots of the ziggurat and the dancing lights coming from the roots of the Sun Tree... So powerful.
Just to add to everyone else here, the ziggurat isn't specifically tied to the whispered one, as keyleth explained to scanlan they're used by mortals to connect to deities, although this particular one was constructed for a specific god (the dawnfather, it's why it's under the sun tree) it doesn't preclude it from being used for other deities
Ziggurat temple for Ioun, her symbol of the three eyes can be seen carved into the stone in some shots. After it was buried in the calamity, Pelor placed the Sun Tree over it.
Like you mentioned, it was still a couple of days before the Solstice in the show's timeline; in an earlier episode Delilah mentioned that she would have to "accelerate" their plans due to Vox Machina and the rebellion threatening their goals. That's why her spell didn't bring the Whispered One back to their world, but "only" managed to create the creepy orb.
The voice of Orthax (Demon possessing Percy) was voiced by Mercer. If you have the subtitles on it says his name, and that's the only time you'll see it other than the credits.
As spoiler free as possible: the Briarwoods were on another continent when Sylas was dying and Delilah made her deal with the whispered one. DBZ is Travis Willingham’a favorite - he saw Laura Bailey’s name in the show credits and called her to ask to put his name in. And now they live happily ever after ❤️
Fun fact the ziggurat under Whitestone was built a millenia ago. It was not actually built for vecna it was corrupted by the Briarwoods for the Whispered One, it was built originally for another deity.
It could have been so easy for the show to make Keylith come off as this whimpering, annoying character, but they managed to make her not just realistically afraid and uncertain, but brave and powerful too. In another world, her character would be botched, but in this world, she's so cool and I'm always rooting for her whenever she pulls through for Vox Machina.
My thoughts on the summoning are 1. It's too early, the solstice was still days away. 2. The summoning needed an entire persons worth of blood, not the trickle Delilah gave. So "The Whispered One", or Vecna, couldn't cross over, but they got this chunk of Negative energy called a sphere of annihilation.
If you watched the campaign you'd know basically they did succeed in the step of bringing vecna to this plane, but there's more than 1 step, hence we see what we see here.
The Briarwood flashback does not take place I. Whitestone. It was years after she found the book they went to Whitestone. The reason they went to Whitestone was not to kill Percy’s family it was to gain access to the ziggerwatt.
I dunno how invested you guys are into learning the history of this world, or if you're gonna check out the Critical Role campaigns, but I would siggest watching ''Exandria: An Intimate History'' on youtube. It's a short video of Matt Mercer narating all of the major details of this world before Vox Machina
An epic fight. It's not exactly the same as what we saw on stream but I'm pretty satisfied with the adaptation. And took far less time too, with a surprise at the end for even those of us who had seen the stream.
I'm really glad that a lot of people understand the adaptions. I watched some of the episodes and a lot of the fights, while fun to listen to, wouldn't really work in a visual format. At least not everything.
@@zacharybartolo5111 Like the conflict in the next episode... it worked fine in the stream for what it was, but what we got in the show is a lot more interesting to *watch.*
in the dnd campaign it was scanlan who mainly connected the dots and rolled a high history check thru his many travels figured out who vecna aka the whispered one. But here having pike a holy person who's effective against undead makes sense.
Marisha (Keylithe's actor) has said that she didn't intentionally make Keylithe like Aang and only really noticed it when they started and people started pointing it out. But says that Avatar was a big part of her life and that it quite possibly could have been a subconscious thing. I haven't heard people comparing Beau to Korra. I can see it. A little. I don't know if she's ever commented on that, though
Yeah it was more that she was indecisive about which domain to pick for her pathfinder druid (animal, air, earth, fire, water, plant) finally choosing air but wanting spells from the other elements. So they found a way to incorporate that into the character, then with the move to DnD the druid circles are different; a range of elemental spells are available for a "Moon" druid so no need to home-brew anything, but the backstory was still there.
Marisha remarked in an early C2 Talks that the Keyleth-Aang parallels were semi-intentional as a way to work with the elements the druid had access to, and were definitely welcome once they were noticed. The fact that her C2 character wears blue, wields a staff, has dark hair, and otherwise parallels Korra was not something she intended. I believe she said something like she saw it being pointed out and went ‘aw, f*ck’. Basically her first character semi-intentionally parallels Aang in story and themes and then her second character completely accidentally parallels Korra aesthetically.
Briarwoods were chased from Wildemount (a different continent) after discovering what Delilah (a prominent sorcerer) did to bring Sylas back (necromancy); the crossed the sea to Tal`Dorei and made there way to Whitestone, to complete the pact she made with the Whispered One. The De Rolos were just collateral damage in the grand scheme of things.
One slight correction Delilah is a wizard not a sorcerer. She was a high level wizard Louise and amount of political power that started dabbling in necromancy to save her love.
The DBZ vibes are real. Travis (Grog) wanted to get on DBZ so badly when he found out Laura (Vex) played kid trunks. It looks like this is an homage to what got Travis started with Voice Acting.
Gotta love the original OP music kicking in for Keyleth's big moment. this quieter version is good, but I do miss the anguished "SYLAS! NO! I broke the WORLD for us" that was screamed in the original stream. Pike's connection to her astral projection is as strong as Ashley's Skype connection. Which is to say, it cuts out a lot at really inopportune times. lastly! for the bit about Grog not being the smartest but still finding a way to fight. To quote the man himself "Please, I have an intelligence of 6, I know what I'm doing"
They use aspects of the spells and moves used in their fights from the campaign, but it is not at all meant to be a perfect 1 for 1 of the actual battles they did. So Grog was not "knocked out" for the first half of the battle here.
Yeah they needed to completely rearrange the fight, 6 vs 2 and a half with Vax staring into space for most of the fight just wouldn't work visually. So Pike dosent do the obvious thing and remove the charm from Vax, leaving the twins to fight it out. Cass is more directly controlled so she can keep Percy occupied. Grog is taken out just to be put back in as the others are downed. Delilah silences Scanlan, effectively taking him out of the fight, but instead of then turning her attention to anyone else she just toys with him.
I still really want them to react to some of the original moments from the campaign at some point. Just so how they can see Matt does things as a DM and how they've taken the original story beats and moment to moment actions, tweaked them where needed and made it work in real-time for this show. It would give them a bit more context for everything really.
So a fun thing with them bringing up DBZ is that Laura Bailey (Vex) is kid Trunks in one (or multiple) of the dubs (don't know if she's in multiple), and Travis Willingham (Grog) is Cell in a few media.
I'll never not love that between her own skill, being at about the most powerful we've seen her in the show and the advantage of Radiant damage against undead, Pike - the healer - fights a vampire lord on even footing.
If I remember correctly that or is it supposed to be the gateway to the nether round where the evil God is. That or negates any type of magic except for another realm magic, and the necklace the evil sorceress is wearing protects her from being killed by the orb
The actual game had Vex be the one who was fingered of death and they had to figure out how to heal her. This was changed to give those of us C1 critters something we didnt know.
@@CallistoTheWarriorQueen And for the actions that will happen in a certain temple. If those actions happen twice for a wider audience it might lose the impact for some people who think the characters have plot armor.
The "we are his blood" is just a religious worship-y thing. Delilah said the same thing previously to Sylas. "Trust in the Whispered One, for we are His blood." Or something like that.
I know ya'll don't really read the comments, but from my research and the Critical Role wiki (and their multiclass might not reflect where we're at in this story, as this is total over the campaign): --Grog is a Goliath (changed to half-giant due to copyright in the show) Barbarian (way of Berserker) [later multiclass into fighter] --Keyleth is a half-elf druid (path of the moon) --Percy is a human (variant) fighter (gunslinger custom subclass) --Pike is a deep gnome cleric (War Domain, formerly Life - we saw her shift here I think?) --Scanlan is a forest gnome bard (College of Lore) --Vax is a half-elf ranger (beastermaster) who later muticlasses rogue --Vex is a half-elf rogue (assassin) who later muticlasses into...well spoiler Remember they started at level 9, at least when Critical Role began. According to the information, the fight with the dragon which was a prequel was level 8 I think.
@@Randomnerd2002 The end result is ultimately the same in this medium format. I was pointing out how they were incorporating dnd in the narrative.. But yes, you are correct
Kind of. But the seal isn't there because the ziggurat is evil the ziggurat is dedicated to a different God in the pantheon that the Dawnfather fought alongside with at Whitestone... You can see her symbol on the ziggurat in a couple of the shots in the show.
I have been waiting for this!!!! Yeah, Delilah and Sylas came to Tal'dorei from the neighbouring continent of Wildemount. Delilah had previously been the Archmage of Antiquity in the Dwendalion Empire but gave that up when she started dabbling in Necromancy. And the "we are his blood" merely references the blood sacrifices that he requires for his rituals. And, oh it worked, just not in a way that anyone probably expected. Another thing to remember is that Necromancers are always one corpse ahead of everyone.
If I remember correctly in the campaign the Solstice was still months away and VM basically forced the Briarwoods to do their ritual early, but it seems that it was on time in the show
I think it was like a week or two away in the campaign not quite months. Regardless they had to move things up and do the ritual on a day that they were not supposed to do the ritual.
Ziggurats where whys to contact Gods not the Whispered One specifically , the Sun tree was planted by the Dawn Farther, so may be the Ziggurat was planted to worship him and The Briarwoods corrupted it. In the original Stream Travis (Grogs VA) failed the wisdom save agents Sylas, as Matt was describing what happened Travis realized that while Raging Grogs is immune to Charm effects, nice to see how the did that in the show.
Minor spoilers: Weren't the hidden ziggurats specifically linked to the Knowing Mistress? After she was horribly wounded at Whitestone by the Chained Oblivion and her power diminished, her followers hid her places of worship so she couldn't be attacked while she healed. Then the Whispered One sent his followers to corrupt them as part of his plan to ascend to godhood.
@@kaitlynwickham6237yes. Exactly this. The Dawnfather planted the sun tree kind of sort of as like a protection because he fought alongside The Knowing Mistress during that battle against The Chained Oblivion. So the sun tree isn't a seal against evil but a more so a seal of protection because he knows that The Knowing Mistress got hurt during that battle.... Honestly probably one of the nicest things that The Dawnfather has ever done... he's kind of a dick. Lmao.
@@kereminde ahhhh got it, yeah I am working on listening through the campaign so I’ll have to get there. I refuse to skip to Whitestone saga so my progress is slow moving
The comment about the art style makes me curious as to what you do think is top tier, because Phil Bourassa, the designer, is a legend in the business, primarily known for his work with DC Animation. Maybe the animators didn't capture it all the time, or it's just not your thing, or maybe I'm just missing something because I'm watching on low video quality for stream speed. Though I was one of the backers on Kickstarter, I don't have Amazon Prime, nor will I ever, so I only saw the first two episodes in full quality.
"for not having the highest quality of art style"? what the hell? after that comment i must have blacked out but i assume the rest of the video was an apology for that ridiculous statement.
I see his point, it is a pretty simple style - that's not a bad thing, CR even talked a few times that they had to "simplify" the designs, for example Grogs tattoos.
Trinket originally came with them. Unfortunately, rangers were pretty crap in early 5e, especially the pet archetype. He was probably left behind because he wouldn't realistically survive Whitestone. We'll probably see more of him in season 2 though, once Vex gets a certain magical something... that will probably be tweaked to save him from being incapacitated, instead of activating after the fact.
That's actually where the weird horse snake transformation Scanlan did comes from. It was a drawing in a video the cast shot with the lead animator I believe.
It's a sphere of annihilation, or at least that is what it looks like. The Whispering One is an alternate title for Vecna, a Lich that ascended to godhood but whether he succeeded in entering our world or not is not known yet, maybe when Season two comes out or not
Back story: Keleth (air Ashari) is on a pilgrimage to visit all the Ashari that protect the rifts to the elemental planes ie: Earth , fire and water to become the figure head of all Ashari.
@@jeffwithheldforsafety8359 It's not what I got from that, She had to pass a test at each tribe to gain their support to don the mantle as speaker for all of them,
Even though the series is based on DnD, I don't think they are going to be able to use resurrection magic much. First of all, Matt really doesn't like it, and second, it takes the stakes out of death and then we don't care what happens. I don't think they are going to be able to resurrect anyone in the series unless there are SERIOUS consequences (not just $$ like in DnD often).
Assuming the show goes far enough, I assume we'll get at least a couple rez scenes. There are a few that are so pivotal to a character's arc it would be a shame if they were dropped.
But Matt adapted the resurrection magic to have more weight and impact also the team or family/friends could assist to better the odds. I'm not sure if failing the assist made it worsen the odds or just no effect.
I know it's all for the sake of the show and dramatic tension, but I feel like the threat of Keyleth dying kind of disappears when you know both Vex and Scanlan, as Ranger and Bard, have healing spells and that any adventuring party worth their salt would have a few potions in reserve. The drama kind of loses impact when you actually know the game, to say nothing of also knowing the overall arc of the campaign in general.
the only one we've been able to see outright heal in the show so far is Pike. Keyleth had to use components and concentrate on it, Scanlan has sort of helped do the same, and Vex hasn't shown anything
But...if you know the game, you know they did have all those healing spells and potions but the tension in that moment was still very real. Vex could have easily died in the time it took to get her down the stairs and out of the anti-magic area, it was only luck of the dice that saved her. Just waking up on her own would be very anticlimactic in this format, so hey everyone had to change things to keep that tension that was very real. I agree the lack of healing spells, and the one lone convenient yet useless potion, is annoying.
I really hope they work something out with Wizards in future seasons to be allowed to use Vecna’s name. I don’t like the idea of him getting a new name or only ever being The Whispered One.
I can very easily see them just sticking to the god titles for copyright reasons . It would be cool if they could buy the rights for him to have his actual name mentioned ....but NONE of the other gods are using their actual names in the show so it would make significantly MORE sense if they just stuck to the god titles exclusively.
It's only for ease of animation. The animators had mentioned in some "getting to know the animation staff" interviews on the Critical Role Twitch and UA-cam channels that animating four legged animals was difficult and time consuming.
Also because they had to travel literally across the whole country, 600+ miles. In the game they hopped a teleport to the closest major town to Whitestone and only had to go from there.
@@corvus2512yup. Animating four-legged creatures is a very difficult and time-consuming thing to do... Therefore making it an expensive thing to do because they could be using the time for animating other things... It's also why they killed off the horses relatively quickly in the animated show as well... granted their horses also die very frequently in the campaign but they were just a bitch to animate and so they killed them off quick. Lol
Well if you wanna know in like base DnD lore how the planes got broken up, it's cause the Overpower Ao, who is basically God Daddy, was very disappointed that all the gods were basically acting like a bunch of babies and wouldn't stop fighting, so he cut them off from the Material Plane, hence why gods cannot just come on down to Exandria in this case. The backstory for the Briarwoods is Sylas was dying and she couldn't save him, so she basically sold her soul to the Whispered One to turn him into a vampire and save his life. In exchange they have to obey him and follow his plans. They are not in any way related to him by blood, they are not descendants of him, that's just a cult saying basically. Also the Briarwoods are originally from Wildmount, which is the continent where their second campaign takes place. The Whispered One is indeed Vecna, however in the world of Exandria he is NOT a god. Vecna is a very very powerful undead, but he is NOT a deity. Interesting fact, in their game Delilah actually blasted VEX for a shit ton of damage and NEARLY killed her with a spell called Finger of Death. If you drop to 0 hit points from that spell, you are instantly killed and reanimated as an undead. So yeah, VERY close and very scary. So for the show they changed it so Keyleth protected Vex, I assume to bring a full close to the animosity Vex had been showing her.
Ao hasn't been mentioned as part of the Exandrian creation mythos. The gods themselves came to the planet somehow and it was until much, much later as a consequence of the calamity they sealed *themselves* behind the divine gate to protect the material plane.
2x ways to destroy a vampire that do not require damage rolls: Immerssion in running water. Exposure to direct Sunlight. The "spinny orb of death thingy" could eaaily be any number of things, from an actual Sphere of Annihilation, to an undead avatar seed, to a Gate to the Negative Material Plane slowly opening, because yes, the "plan" is running early so things are not quite right. Still Bad, Very Bad. Egon Spengler definitions of Very Bad. VECNA LIVES
I've watched all the episodes of Campaign 1,2 and 3. As far as the money they were able to raise over 11 million dollars via a kick starter for this to come to fruition.
"If I don't know where I'm swinging, than neither do you!" In the U.S. military, this technique of firing blind is known as "accuracy by volume". Just throw everything in that direction. Something is bound to hit.
Lol the whole "we are his blood" was just a turn of phrase. It's the same thing as Christians saying the church is the "body of christ". Just a turn of phrase, yall are reading WAY too much into that line lmao
@@Randomnerd2002 I highly doubt that we will. My bet is they will be a rakshasa-like easter egg for those in the know. Two-minute dialogue tops. The charachter is great, but here's why I think it won't happen: - By design this is clearly a 3-season show (1 - Briarwoods, 2 - dragons, 3 - you know who). - The original arc of this charachter falls right between seasons 2 and 3 and doesn't really intersect with any of the two stories, as it is focused on personal quests of some of the other party members. - Making a third season about the "daring trials and tribulations", adding a fourth one is pointless, as it will be less significant, acton packed and, well, IMPORTANT for this world compared to the other three. - The main reason that artificer existed is purely meta: one of the players needed to sit at the table while his main character wasn't there. It was logically played out in game, but the same trick won't survive in animation without, well, a mid-season time skip to say the least - which means killing the pace and splitting the story in half. I think they will reinact the events that led to the introduction of that character, but the aftermath won't last for more than half an episode, maybe one full episode tops. There will be no place and time to introduce and fully develop this charachter within that timeframe.
For the same reason we will probably never see in this show the actual end of most of the personal quests of the party, or they will just be spread througout season 3, where they will complete their quests as a part of their actual preparation for the final battle, getting the Vestiges and trammels not just as rewards, but as actual quest items directly linked to their goal of matching the final boss in power.
@@levindeed I could see that, but maybe we will get him as a recurring side character, perhaps he will create those earrings that let them talk to each other.
@@levindeedthe critical role crew have said that they're aiming for five or six seasons for the entirety of the Vox Machina story... Not three. So that character absolutely might show up... how long they're going to show up for is a different story .. but they absolutely will probably find a way to fit them in as it is a result of a VERY big Scanlan arc.
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Yes another episode!!!
I remember Matt being so disappointed they killed Sylas so fast, Keyleth’s solarbeam rolled really high and he was obliterated before he could use all his skills.
I haven't watched the streams, but this was apparently a running thing with the Briarwoods?
Like, every encounter with them that the show adapted, Vox Machina actually got really close to killing them handily because of good rolls and Matt had to bail them out a lot.
@@officiallyjan8596 IIRC They defeated Silas at least once before, but he became a mist (Vamp ability) and escaped. The only way to kill him was with running water or sun. At the Zig fight, they downed him again (not that quickly) and then Kiki solar beamed his mist form to kill him for good. In fact, Vex got the killing shot on Silas, and then Delilah got a vengeance boner for Vex. Vex was the one who was downed in the fight and not Kiki.
If I remember right they bounced the beam of Pikes shield.
They defeated both at the feast and they had to teleport twice to get away. I don't specifically remember the end of the other fights with them but they definitely lost a few times before actually dying.
@@balkhazzargaming5373 I can’t imagine banning counterspell. It’s such an important resource for magic combat! Taking tools away from players because they perform well is never the answer; the DM needs to step up to bat and write more dynamic encounters that can’t be solved with one spell
Oh, also Matt(The DM) never was like, "Okay roll to see if you fade". Pike's astral form did fade and at some really crucial times, but only because in those moments, Skype lost connection.
(mild spoilers) it also might be since the orb is also an antimagic field
@@thatsmuggamer That is exactly why she disappears in this particular instance
Skype knows the perfect timing...
@@amodelmannequin That cant be why it faded in this instance. Remember, Vex reached into the bag of holding which wouldnt be a thing in an anti magic field. It even made the telltale tinkling sound they've used every time someone reached into the bag of holding in this show.
@@transientanus that's just a plot hole. Unless they've changed the show's verson of the Spinning Ball of Death's rules to "only healing magic", which I find unlikely considering future events.
Yeah, Vecna is “The Whispered One” but they don’t refer to any of the gods by their in-lore names because of copyright. Pike never calls her Sarenrae (or Raei if you’ve read EGtW), only “Everlight”, The Rebels of Whitestone mentioned the Dawnfather, but never Pelor, etc.
They also changed Bigby's Hand to Scanlan's Hand
And Goliaths are referred to as half-giants, and most of the classes aren't referred to by name(though that seems more like a way to make things feel more realistic, like you wouldn't call yourself a rogue or a barbarian, you would just explain your skill sets as being really good at sneaking or hitting really hard, respectively. Exceptions would probably be things like bards, druids, and wizards, who's job descriptions match the class name)
I wouldn't be surprised if they do pay a license fee for Vecna. Even in campaign they avoid his name because saying it brings his attention, so it was mostly forgotten. So maybe they still leave it as is then get an epic reveal, name included. Imo that would be a pretty sweet choice for one name to get a license for
@@TheLangenator To be fair, Scanlan got more use
out of it than Bigby ever did.
@@chipsalom even with license fee deep down matt doesnt want to be leashed by dnd even more then it is now. despite being known as a popular dungeon master which is a trademark title for dnd he is deep down a game master. he is super open to play and showcase other trpgs then just dnd but right now with the show popularity and ppl mainly only know dnd he has to showcase that.
wil lsay this: for sure one day either he wants to fully end/complete critical roll and the campaign world they are in or sell off the rights to that world to wotc. that way with that leash loosened now he can go and play/showcase other trpgs. most likely maybe go back to pathfinder for 2e or something else that catch his attention like fate, old school essentials/dungeon crawl classics, blades in the dark or other.
"I broke the world for us" That was & still is one of my many favourite quotes from Campaign 1, because we all have someone we would break the world for.
Percy's "angry" voice is Taliesin himself but when it distorts its mixed with Matthew Mercers voice who voices Sylas but also various others. In the subtitles there are some explanation to what is happening
In case anyone noticed Deliah's scream at Sylas’s death is so powerful it shatters the silence spell and literally blows everyone in the vicinity away
To clarify: when Cassandra said "we are his blood" she was echoing what Delilah said to Sylas earlier in reference to The Whispered One. Since all the necromantic rituals to call upon him involve blood it is not a leap to guess that by "giving" their blood in rituals to him that his followers metaphorically become "of the same blood" as him. The DeRolo family does not share any actual part of their bloodline with either The Whispered One or the Briarwoods.
Also the different sects of vecna are named for body parts depending on what they do. Warriors=bones, mages=blood, clerics=breath. Ect
Percy's entity is voiced by non other than Mathew Mercer, who also voices Sylas. Mad skills.
One of my favourite things about this show is how unique some of the choreography is compared a lot of other animated shows. Like the way Grog moves when swinging his massive axe, or Sylas's quick slashes with his blade, or how mobile Pike was
20:45
-"Silence!"
-"Dispel magic."
-"Counterspell!"
-"......fffffuck."
if you know, you know.
This was Orion, right? Can’t quite remember
@@PhoenixPalmer88 Yup
Vecna is an Old School D&D character (Original Owner of the Hand and Eye), a Lich from the World of Greyhawk who eventually ascended to Godhood. Matt's Exandria Pantheon is a mishmash of Deities from numerous DnD and Pathfinder settings.
Gods are not able to walk on Exandria... anymore.
Yeah, in this campaign at this point The Whispered One is still technically a lich that is attempting to ascend to Godhood...he's not a god himself yet which is why the Briarwoods are able to communicate with him in the way that they are... He is NOT sealed behind the divine gate like all of the other gods in Exandria... But yeah Matt took the majority of the pantheon visuals and personalities from the Dawn War Pantheon.... The only deity that's not from the Dawn War Pantheon is Pikes Sarenrae (Sarenrae is the Pathfinder name and Raei is her Dawn War Pantheon name) mainly because Ashley Johnson wanted to keep using the Pathfinder name when they switched from Pathfinder to D&D 5e. 🤷♀️
I still love the Version of "Your turn to Roll" that they used for the final scene with Keyleth blasting Sylus with Daylight
Actually she blasted hin with Sunbeam
The theme used wasn't Your Turn to Roll I don't think. That was the Mighty Nein theme. They used the Vox Machina theme.
@@gebdemedici Your Turn to Roll uses the Vox Machina theme but with Sam's lyrics added to it.
@@gebdemediciVox Machina also used it. It's pretty much the theme for Critical Role in general
The Whispered One is indeed Vecna, they just can't call him Vecna in this because copyright. In the campaign they referred to him as Vecna a lot.
To be fair, it is a mystery at first who The Whispered One is and he is referred to as The Whispered One in the beginning of the campaign ...but the group does eventually learn what his actual name is... But The Whispered One is technically the first titled god in Exandria. In campaign 2, Matt decides to retitle ALL of the gods instead of using their copyrighted Dawn War Pantheon names. And so they're most likely just going to stick with the god titles and NEVER use any of their copyrighted names in the show. But yeah Vecna was originally referred to as a title for like mystery purposes in campaign one ... Though I'm sure Taliesin probably guessed who the big bad of the campaign was before anybody else because he has the most experience playing D&D other than the dungeon master himself... I'd be very surprised if Taliesin hadn't fought Vecna before in previous campaigns he's been in lol. He's a pretty classic D&D big bad.
The music has been pretty amazing through the series, but in this episode, Neal Acree kicked it up several notches. My favorite scene is Keyleth and her "being the light" moment. When the chorus and the drums really get going, and it all just builds so beautifully and powerfully, combined with the broad shots of the ziggurat and the dancing lights coming from the roots of the Sun Tree... So powerful.
Just to add to everyone else here, the ziggurat isn't specifically tied to the whispered one, as keyleth explained to scanlan they're used by mortals to connect to deities, although this particular one was constructed for a specific god (the dawnfather, it's why it's under the sun tree) it doesn't preclude it from being used for other deities
Actually, I'm pretty sure that it used to be a temple of Ioun
@@alien5520 you're probably correct, i haven't revisited campaign one and it's been years, i might be misremembering stuff
Ziggurat temple for Ioun, her symbol of the three eyes can be seen carved into the stone in some shots. After it was buried in the calamity, Pelor placed the Sun Tree over it.
Man, Sylas's Death Scream gave me chills, Matt gave it his all!
It’s right up there with Sam Witwer’s ‘Kenobi’ scream
Same with Percy's "THEY MURDERED OUR FAMILY!" The voice acting is so on point, but I expect nothing less from them.
The Briarwoods are from a different continent (Wildemount). That's where he got sick and she found the book.
2:05 And again, Percy proves that “Ziggurrat smoking may be hazardous to your Stealth”
I’ll show myself out…
Boooooo lol
Boo this man!
Like you mentioned, it was still a couple of days before the Solstice in the show's timeline; in an earlier episode Delilah mentioned that she would have to "accelerate" their plans due to Vox Machina and the rebellion threatening their goals. That's why her spell didn't bring the Whispered One back to their world, but "only" managed to create the creepy orb.
The voice of Orthax (Demon possessing Percy) was voiced by Mercer. If you have the subtitles on it says his name, and that's the only time you'll see it other than the credits.
As spoiler free as possible: the Briarwoods were on another continent when Sylas was dying and Delilah made her deal with the whispered one. DBZ is Travis Willingham’a favorite - he saw Laura Bailey’s name in the show credits and called her to ask to put his name in. And now they live happily ever after ❤️
Fun fact the ziggurat under Whitestone was built a millenia ago. It was not actually built for vecna it was corrupted by the Briarwoods for the Whispered One, it was built originally for another deity.
It could have been so easy for the show to make Keylith come off as this whimpering, annoying character, but they managed to make her not just realistically afraid and uncertain, but brave and powerful too. In another world, her character would be botched, but in this world, she's so cool and I'm always rooting for her whenever she pulls through for Vox Machina.
My thoughts on the summoning are 1. It's too early, the solstice was still days away. 2. The summoning needed an entire persons worth of blood, not the trickle Delilah gave. So "The Whispered One", or Vecna, couldn't cross over, but they got this chunk of Negative energy called a sphere of annihilation.
If you watched the campaign you'd know basically they did succeed in the step of bringing vecna to this plane, but there's more than 1 step, hence we see what we see here.
Those Spheres are nasty business.
The Briarwood flashback does not take place I. Whitestone. It was years after she found the book they went to Whitestone. The reason they went to Whitestone was not to kill Percy’s family it was to gain access to the ziggerwatt.
I dunno how invested you guys are into learning the history of this world, or if you're gonna check out the Critical Role campaigns, but I would siggest watching ''Exandria: An Intimate History'' on youtube. It's a short video of Matt Mercer narating all of the major details of this world before Vox Machina
Great world lore video! I loved it so much!!!
Taliesin the voice of Percy is an amazing voice actor with a lot of creepy voices ready at all times I can imagine he did both voices
Not quite, Taliesin did shift his voice but they also mixed his with Mercers when Orthax was talking through Percy.
That's a solid Grog impression, Calvin.
An epic fight. It's not exactly the same as what we saw on stream but I'm pretty satisfied with the adaptation. And took far less time too, with a surprise at the end for even those of us who had seen the stream.
I'm really glad that a lot of people understand the adaptions. I watched some of the episodes and a lot of the fights, while fun to listen to, wouldn't really work in a visual format. At least not everything.
@@zacharybartolo5111 Like the conflict in the next episode... it worked fine in the stream for what it was, but what we got in the show is a lot more interesting to *watch.*
@@BaronVonHoovy which conflict again?
in the dnd campaign it was scanlan who mainly connected the dots and rolled a high history check thru his many travels figured out who vecna aka the whispered one. But here having pike a holy person who's effective against undead makes sense.
Matt Mercer, the DM and the one who voices Sylas, is also the one voicing the shadow creature in Percy
Marisha (Keylithe's actor) has said that she didn't intentionally make Keylithe like Aang and only really noticed it when they started and people started pointing it out. But says that Avatar was a big part of her life and that it quite possibly could have been a subconscious thing. I haven't heard people comparing Beau to Korra. I can see it. A little. I don't know if she's ever commented on that, though
Yeah it was more that she was indecisive about which domain to pick for her pathfinder druid (animal, air, earth, fire, water, plant) finally choosing air but wanting spells from the other elements. So they found a way to incorporate that into the character, then with the move to DnD the druid circles are different; a range of elemental spells are available for a "Moon" druid so no need to home-brew anything, but the backstory was still there.
Marisha remarked in an early C2 Talks that the Keyleth-Aang parallels were semi-intentional as a way to work with the elements the druid had access to, and were definitely welcome once they were noticed. The fact that her C2 character wears blue, wields a staff, has dark hair, and otherwise parallels Korra was not something she intended. I believe she said something like she saw it being pointed out and went ‘aw, f*ck’. Basically her first character semi-intentionally parallels Aang in story and themes and then her second character completely accidentally parallels Korra aesthetically.
keyleth
The Briarwoods came from the neighboring continent of Wildemount. Check out the map!
Briarwoods were chased from Wildemount (a different continent) after discovering what Delilah (a prominent sorcerer) did to bring Sylas back (necromancy); the crossed the sea to Tal`Dorei and made there way to Whitestone, to complete the pact she made with the Whispered One. The De Rolos were just collateral damage in the grand scheme of things.
One slight correction Delilah is a wizard not a sorcerer. She was a high level wizard Louise and amount of political power that started dabbling in necromancy to save her love.
Orthax is voiced by Matt Mercer
The amount of people misspelling Keyleth's name in here is eating at my existence.
The DBZ vibes are real. Travis (Grog) wanted to get on DBZ so badly when he found out Laura (Vex) played kid trunks. It looks like this is an homage to what got Travis started with Voice Acting.
Gotta love the original OP music kicking in for Keyleth's big moment.
this quieter version is good, but I do miss the anguished "SYLAS! NO! I broke the WORLD for us" that was screamed in the original stream.
Pike's connection to her astral projection is as strong as Ashley's Skype connection. Which is to say, it cuts out a lot at really inopportune times.
lastly! for the bit about Grog not being the smartest but still finding a way to fight. To quote the man himself "Please, I have an intelligence of 6, I know what I'm doing"
They use aspects of the spells and moves used in their fights from the campaign, but it is not at all meant to be a perfect 1 for 1 of the actual battles they did. So Grog was not "knocked out" for the first half of the battle here.
Yeah they needed to completely rearrange the fight, 6 vs 2 and a half with Vax staring into space for most of the fight just wouldn't work visually. So Pike dosent do the obvious thing and remove the charm from Vax, leaving the twins to fight it out. Cass is more directly controlled so she can keep Percy occupied. Grog is taken out just to be put back in as the others are downed. Delilah silences Scanlan, effectively taking him out of the fight, but instead of then turning her attention to anyone else she just toys with him.
I still really want them to react to some of the original moments from the campaign at some point. Just so how they can see Matt does things as a DM and how they've taken the original story beats and moment to moment actions, tweaked them where needed and made it work in real-time for this show. It would give them a bit more context for everything really.
Would be cool if they did....they haven't decided to do that though, unfortunately.
So a fun thing with them bringing up DBZ is that Laura Bailey (Vex) is kid Trunks in one (or multiple) of the dubs (don't know if she's in multiple), and Travis Willingham (Grog) is Cell in a few media.
9:40 that ringtone matched the scene lol
I'll never not love that between her own skill, being at about the most powerful we've seen her in the show and the advantage of Radiant damage against undead, Pike - the healer - fights a vampire lord on even footing.
3:09 The best Falcon Punch in any cartoon, bar none
I think this is my favorite episode overall. I think it’s the music but Keyleth powering up the light gets me emotional.
That’s Matt’s favorite moment as well
If I remember correctly that or is it supposed to be the gateway to the nether round where the evil God is. That or negates any type of magic except for another realm magic, and the necklace the evil sorceress is wearing protects her from being killed by the orb
09:11 😂 was thinking the same thing!
The thought of the spinning orb of doom doing something there in time is complete speculation...
1:47 how did Calvin know to say that at the same time as grog? Are they using subtitles or has he seen that bit before?
this was one awesome episode
The actual game had Vex be the one who was fingered of death and they had to figure out how to heal her. This was changed to give those of us C1 critters something we didnt know.
I think this will also pay dividends later as well in the next season
@@andrewwebb3248 I'm just waiting for the goldfish.
@@SightUnseen555 I had completely forgotten that oh lord people are gonna lose their every loving minds.
I think they changed it for the show just to speed up Vex and Keyleth's reconciliation
@@CallistoTheWarriorQueen And for the actions that will happen in a certain temple. If those actions happen twice for a wider audience it might lose the impact for some people who think the characters have plot armor.
The "we are his blood" is just a religious worship-y thing. Delilah said the same thing previously to Sylas. "Trust in the Whispered One, for we are His blood." Or something like that.
I know ya'll don't really read the comments, but from my research and the Critical Role wiki (and their multiclass might not reflect where we're at in this story, as this is total over the campaign):
--Grog is a Goliath (changed to half-giant due to copyright in the show) Barbarian (way of Berserker) [later multiclass into fighter]
--Keyleth is a half-elf druid (path of the moon)
--Percy is a human (variant) fighter (gunslinger custom subclass)
--Pike is a deep gnome cleric (War Domain, formerly Life - we saw her shift here I think?)
--Scanlan is a forest gnome bard (College of Lore)
--Vax is a half-elf ranger (beastermaster) who later muticlasses rogue
--Vex is a half-elf rogue (assassin) who later muticlasses into...well spoiler
Remember they started at level 9, at least when Critical Role began. According to the information, the fight with the dragon which was a prequel was level 8 I think.
Just a heads up, Keyleth WAS inspired by Avatar, Marisha's 2nd character was NOT but people kept saying they were.
"Do we appeal to this new ball-god?"
Me trying to get a Manscaped sponsorship
Another amazing reaction
the Ï don't know where I'm swinging"bit is Grog doing a Reckless attack...which does more damage.
It just gives him advantage so he rolls twice and takes the better roll.
@@Randomnerd2002 The end result is ultimately the same in this medium format. I was pointing out how they were incorporating dnd in the narrative.. But yes, you are correct
@@dehro yeah, sorry I'm just a stickler for rules
Matt does the other voice layered over Percy’s.
Seems the Dawn-father put the Sun Tree there as a seal.
Kind of. But the seal isn't there because the ziggurat is evil the ziggurat is dedicated to a different God in the pantheon that the Dawnfather fought alongside with at Whitestone... You can see her symbol on the ziggurat in a couple of the shots in the show.
I have been waiting for this!!!!
Yeah, Delilah and Sylas came to Tal'dorei from the neighbouring continent of Wildemount. Delilah had previously been the Archmage of Antiquity in the Dwendalion Empire but gave that up when she started dabbling in Necromancy. And the "we are his blood" merely references the blood sacrifices that he requires for his rituals.
And, oh it worked, just not in a way that anyone probably expected.
Another thing to remember is that Necromancers are always one corpse ahead of everyone.
If I remember correctly in the campaign the Solstice was still months away and VM basically forced the Briarwoods to do their ritual early, but it seems that it was on time in the show
I think it was like a week or two away in the campaign not quite months. Regardless they had to move things up and do the ritual on a day that they were not supposed to do the ritual.
Ziggurats where whys to contact Gods not the Whispered One specifically , the Sun tree was planted by the Dawn Farther, so may be the Ziggurat was planted to worship him and The Briarwoods corrupted it.
In the original Stream Travis (Grogs VA) failed the wisdom save agents Sylas, as Matt was describing what happened Travis realized that while Raging Grogs is immune to Charm effects, nice to see how the did that in the show.
Minor spoilers:
Weren't the hidden ziggurats specifically linked to the Knowing Mistress? After she was horribly wounded at Whitestone by the Chained Oblivion and her power diminished, her followers hid her places of worship so she couldn't be attacked while she healed. Then the Whispered One sent his followers to corrupt them as part of his plan to ascend to godhood.
@@kaitlynwickham6237 you are right
@@kaitlynwickham6237yes. Exactly this. The Dawnfather planted the sun tree kind of sort of as like a protection because he fought alongside The Knowing Mistress during that battle against The Chained Oblivion. So the sun tree isn't a seal against evil but a more so a seal of protection because he knows that The Knowing Mistress got hurt during that battle.... Honestly probably one of the nicest things that The Dawnfather has ever done... he's kind of a dick. Lmao.
I think the ball is either a sphere of anti magic or sphere of annihilation. Or a combo of the two
It's... something, all right. We'll see if the series gets that far with the animation versus the campaign :)
@@kereminde ahhhh got it, yeah I am working on listening through the campaign so I’ll have to get there. I refuse to skip to Whitestone saga so my progress is slow moving
The comment about the art style makes me curious as to what you do think is top tier, because Phil Bourassa, the designer, is a legend in the business, primarily known for his work with DC Animation. Maybe the animators didn't capture it all the time, or it's just not your thing, or maybe I'm just missing something because I'm watching on low video quality for stream speed. Though I was one of the backers on Kickstarter, I don't have Amazon Prime, nor will I ever, so I only saw the first two episodes in full quality.
keyleth basically said praise the sun
Keyleth used Solar Beam
It's Super Effective
Sylas Briarwood fainted
The Derolo bloodline has nothing to do with the Briarwoods or the whispered one.
Oh oh oh! Matt Mercer is doing the Orthax voice layered over Percy's.
"The Briarwoods arrived bringing dark ambitions." They let no one stand in their way, not even children.
I won't t go further to avoid spoilers.
"for not having the highest quality of art style"? what the hell? after that comment i must have blacked out but i assume the rest of the video was an apology for that ridiculous statement.
I see his point, it is a pretty simple style - that's not a bad thing, CR even talked a few times that they had to "simplify" the designs, for example Grogs tattoos.
@@Makverus i suppose. but to me "simple" and "not the highest quality" are oceans apart in terms of meaning. *shrug*
@@joecurran910 I'm guessing they're comparing it to Arcane maybe? Every episode of that show had the budget of the entire first season of Vox Machina.
I did a double-take when he said that, wondering if I heard wrong.
It’s meant to resemble early 90s Saturday morning cartoons
can't wait for the finale S1
When yall doing season 2? please?
it's here!
Great watch tho a bit wierd with all the traffic noise in the background but somehow i find it a bit comforting!
Such a good action episode!
22:34 that's exactly what it is I think?
Go blindwave!!!
Just gotta xerox Keyleth to fix the hole...🤣
Trinket originally came with them. Unfortunately, rangers were pretty crap in early 5e, especially the pet archetype. He was probably left behind because he wouldn't realistically survive Whitestone. We'll probably see more of him in season 2 though, once Vex gets a certain magical something... that will probably be tweaked to save him from being incapacitated, instead of activating after the fact.
He was left behind in the series because the animators hate animating 4 legged large creatures.
That's actually where the weird horse snake transformation Scanlan did comes from. It was a drawing in a video the cast shot with the lead animator I believe.
Trinket did good in Whitestone and actually got the first Vamp kill in the campaign.
@@jeffwithheldforsafety8359 AND he helped get rid of Orthax.
It's a sphere of annihilation, or at least that is what it looks like. The Whispering One is an alternate title for Vecna, a Lich that ascended to godhood but whether he succeeded in entering our world or not is not known yet, maybe when Season two comes out or not
First of all, spoilers. Secondly, you didn't get that info right, in Matt's world he is not a god
It isn’t a sphere of annihilation but it is similar.
Sphere of Annihilation!!
Sylas = Fake Ass King Bradley
I mean, Vex is kid trunks, so makes sense
Back story: Keleth (air Ashari) is on a pilgrimage to visit all the Ashari that protect the rifts to the elemental planes ie: Earth , fire and water to become the figure head of all Ashari.
She is the daughter of the leader of the Air Ashari
And then the fire nation attacked
@@SinuousStudios weeeeellll
Spoilers
Thordak says hi
She just becomes the head of the Air Ashari not all of them.
@@jeffwithheldforsafety8359 It's not what I got from that, She had to pass a test at each tribe to gain their support to don the mantle as speaker for all of them,
Even though the series is based on DnD, I don't think they are going to be able to use resurrection magic much. First of all, Matt really doesn't like it, and second, it takes the stakes out of death and then we don't care what happens. I don't think they are going to be able to resurrect anyone in the series unless there are SERIOUS consequences (not just $$ like in DnD often).
Assuming the show goes far enough, I assume we'll get at least a couple rez scenes. There are a few that are so pivotal to a character's arc it would be a shame if they were dropped.
But Matt adapted the resurrection magic to have more weight and impact also the team or family/friends could assist to better the odds. I'm not sure if failing the assist made it worsen the odds or just no effect.
@@holderkin8362 #1 on the list is the "it's fine, we're gods" rez. Might be more player growth than character growth but gods was it hilarious.
@@gun506
Agree that was hilarious. I was thinking more along the lines of a certain deal made during one and then the "What's is my mother's name?!?"
Can't forget the "It's yours" resurrection either. That's why that character came back in the first place.
I know it's all for the sake of the show and dramatic tension, but I feel like the threat of Keyleth dying kind of disappears when you know both Vex and Scanlan, as Ranger and Bard, have healing spells and that any adventuring party worth their salt would have a few potions in reserve. The drama kind of loses impact when you actually know the game, to say nothing of also knowing the overall arc of the campaign in general.
They have them in the game, but there's no indication that they're able to do that in the show.
the only one we've been able to see outright heal in the show so far is Pike. Keyleth had to use components and concentrate on it, Scanlan has sort of helped do the same, and Vex hasn't shown anything
But...if you know the game, you know they did have all those healing spells and potions but the tension in that moment was still very real. Vex could have easily died in the time it took to get her down the stairs and out of the anti-magic area, it was only luck of the dice that saved her. Just waking up on her own would be very anticlimactic in this format, so hey everyone had to change things to keep that tension that was very real. I agree the lack of healing spells, and the one lone convenient yet useless potion, is annoying.
I really hope they work something out with Wizards in future seasons to be allowed to use Vecna’s name. I don’t like the idea of him getting a new name or only ever being The Whispered One.
I can very easily see them just sticking to the god titles for copyright reasons . It would be cool if they could buy the rights for him to have his actual name mentioned ....but NONE of the other gods are using their actual names in the show so it would make significantly MORE sense if they just stuck to the god titles exclusively.
Leaving the bear behind does seem like a stupid move..... did the episode say why?
It's only for ease of animation. The animators had mentioned in some "getting to know the animation staff" interviews on the Critical Role Twitch and UA-cam channels that animating four legged animals was difficult and time consuming.
Also because they had to travel literally across the whole country, 600+ miles. In the game they hopped a teleport to the closest major town to Whitestone and only had to go from there.
@@johnlawsonjr.8883 Really? Animating a bear is for difficult than the other things? I would not have thought of that, oh well.
@@corvus2512yup. Animating four-legged creatures is a very difficult and time-consuming thing to do... Therefore making it an expensive thing to do because they could be using the time for animating other things... It's also why they killed off the horses relatively quickly in the animated show as well... granted their horses also die very frequently in the campaign but they were just a bitch to animate and so they killed them off quick. Lol
Ayyy
Well if you wanna know in like base DnD lore how the planes got broken up, it's cause the Overpower Ao, who is basically God Daddy, was very disappointed that all the gods were basically acting like a bunch of babies and wouldn't stop fighting, so he cut them off from the Material Plane, hence why gods cannot just come on down to Exandria in this case.
The backstory for the Briarwoods is Sylas was dying and she couldn't save him, so she basically sold her soul to the Whispered One to turn him into a vampire and save his life. In exchange they have to obey him and follow his plans. They are not in any way related to him by blood, they are not descendants of him, that's just a cult saying basically. Also the Briarwoods are originally from Wildmount, which is the continent where their second campaign takes place.
The Whispered One is indeed Vecna, however in the world of Exandria he is NOT a god. Vecna is a very very powerful undead, but he is NOT a deity.
Interesting fact, in their game Delilah actually blasted VEX for a shit ton of damage and NEARLY killed her with a spell called Finger of Death. If you drop to 0 hit points from that spell, you are instantly killed and reanimated as an undead. So yeah, VERY close and very scary. So for the show they changed it so Keyleth protected Vex, I assume to bring a full close to the animosity Vex had been showing her.
Ao hasn't been mentioned as part of the Exandrian creation mythos. The gods themselves came to the planet somehow and it was until much, much later as a consequence of the calamity they sealed *themselves* behind the divine gate to protect the material plane.
They should start vampire diaries
This comment is to help this channel in the algorithm.
so is this reply
2x ways to destroy a vampire that do not require damage rolls:
Immerssion in running water.
Exposure to direct Sunlight.
The "spinny orb of death thingy" could eaaily be any number of things, from an actual Sphere of Annihilation, to an undead avatar seed, to a Gate to the Negative Material Plane slowly opening, because yes, the "plan" is running early so things are not quite right.
Still Bad, Very Bad. Egon Spengler definitions of Very Bad.
VECNA LIVES
I've watched all the episodes of Campaign 1,2 and 3. As far as the money they were able to raise over 11 million dollars via a kick starter for this to come to fruition.
"If I don't know where I'm swinging, than neither do you!"
In the U.S. military, this technique of firing blind is known as "accuracy by volume". Just throw everything in that direction. Something is bound to hit.
One of these bullets has your name on it, we'll just have to shoot them all at you to find which one.
Lol the whole "we are his blood" was just a turn of phrase. It's the same thing as Christians saying the church is the "body of christ". Just a turn of phrase, yall are reading WAY too much into that line lmao
Anyone else think we aren't done with the Briarwoods?
If you killed a necromancer and it was easy, you probably didn't do it right
Read a Necromancers spell list… so many ways for her to survive
Percy's class would be Artificer I think
Nope, fighter subclass.
We will see an artificer later tho
@@Randomnerd2002 I highly doubt that we will. My bet is they will be a rakshasa-like easter egg for those in the know. Two-minute dialogue tops.
The charachter is great, but here's why I think it won't happen:
- By design this is clearly a 3-season show (1 - Briarwoods, 2 - dragons, 3 - you know who).
- The original arc of this charachter falls right between seasons 2 and 3 and doesn't really intersect with any of the two stories, as it is focused on personal quests of some of the other party members.
- Making a third season about the "daring trials and tribulations", adding a fourth one is pointless, as it will be less significant, acton packed and, well, IMPORTANT for this world compared to the other three.
- The main reason that artificer existed is purely meta: one of the players needed to sit at the table while his main character wasn't there. It was logically played out in game, but the same trick won't survive in animation without, well, a mid-season time skip to say the least - which means killing the pace and splitting the story in half.
I think they will reinact the events that led to the introduction of that character, but the aftermath won't last for more than half an episode, maybe one full episode tops. There will be no place and time to introduce and fully develop this charachter within that timeframe.
For the same reason we will probably never see in this show the actual end of most of the personal quests of the party, or they will just be spread througout season 3, where they will complete their quests as a part of their actual preparation for the final battle, getting the Vestiges and trammels not just as rewards, but as actual quest items directly linked to their goal of matching the final boss in power.
@@levindeed I could see that, but maybe we will get him as a recurring side character, perhaps he will create those earrings that let them talk to each other.
@@levindeedthe critical role crew have said that they're aiming for five or six seasons for the entirety of the Vox Machina story... Not three. So that character absolutely might show up... how long they're going to show up for is a different story .. but they absolutely will probably find a way to fit them in as it is a result of a VERY big Scanlan arc.
it did work . the whispered one got what he needed from the ziggurat . and what what delilah brought forth is something much much worse