Imagine: Dragons. Specifically, three of them.
It really has been wild to watch Critical Role rise to its current fame. Not to get all hipster about it, but I hopped on back when Campaign 1 was barely out of its Geek & Sundry origins—and now it's a whole franchise. It's even making its own home-baked TTRPG—no, scratch, that, two of them.
One such sign of how dramatically things have changed came with The Legend of Vox Machina, an animated series that tapped into what I can only describe as a piranha-swarm hunger from the show's fans. The series' fundraiser gathered $1 million dollars in its first hour, and over $11 million of funding in total.
I've quite enjoyed both seasons out of its current run, which have covered both the Whitestone arc and the first half of the Chroma Conclave arc from the livestream quite faithfully—though they've been understandably scrubbed of most D&D-isms so as to keep things legally hunky-dory.
Quiet confirmation of a third season has emerged, tucked away in a Washington Post interview, as spotted by Dicebreaker—who I just so happened to write about the show for before I got this current PC Gamer gig. Funny how things line up, sometimes.
"The show’s third season, which follows the arc of the 115-episode campaign, will be released in the fall," reads the Washington Post interview, though no specific date has been shared yet. "A separate animated series, based on the show’s second campaign about a band of misfits known as the Mighty Nein, is currently in production."
CEO of Critical Role Travis Willingham also confirmed the impromptu announcement on Twitter, promising: "Ya'll, it's so good."
The series will continue the adventures of Vox Machina in their quest to defeat the Chroma Conclave—though how much ground this season will cover remains to be seen. Spoilers as I start getting into hypotheticals about future plot points—for Campaign 1 in general, not just from the animated series.
Season 2 saw Vox Machina snag a few of the Vestiges of Divergence they need to slay the Chroma Conclave—a bunch of dragons which tore through the capital city of Emon—and slay Umbrasyl, the first of the four BBEGs introduced at the top of the season. That leaves Vorugal, Thordak, and Raishan as foes on the players' plates.
If I were a betting man, I'd say Thordak'll be the mid-to-late season climax, with Raishan acting as a final confrontation lasting a couple of episodes. While I'd love for Raishan to get her own season, that'd require a lot of moving stuff around, as the original campaign saw just a few episodes between Thordak's fall and Raishan's end.
Which does leave Vorugal as a lingering question mark. In the original campaign, Vox Machina used a scroll of Gate to summon a legendary Goristro to soften the great white dragon up before going for the kill. Part of me wonders if that'll see him offed as a cold-open (heh) gag.
Alternatively, Raishan could be saved as a mid-season baddie for season 4, since there's plenty more ground to cross after her defeat. Anything's possible. Either way, I'm looking forward to seeing the blunder-prone party that put Critical Role on the map return for another bout of dragon-slaying.
