VOX MACHINA ANIMATED SERIES

The first two episodes do a perfect job of laying out the showвЂ™s dynamic and pulling you into all the characters.

While youвЂ™re sure to get more out of The Legend of Vox Machina having been a fan of Critical Role or knowledgeable of tabletop gaming, none of that is required.

VOX MACHINA ANIMATED SERIES

After those two episodes, the series starts rolling into a bigger storyline, focusing on Percy and his past while delving into the other characters more as well. All those voice actors are from Critical Role, and there hasnвЂ™t been any recasting. That team is composed of Pike Trickfoot, the Gnome Cleric (Ashley Johnson) Keyleth, the Half-Elf Druid (Marisha Ray) Percival вЂњPercyвЂќ Fredrickstein Von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III, the Human Gunslinger (Taliesin Jaffe) Grog Strongjaw, the Goliath Barbarian (Travis Willingham) Scanlan Shorthalt, the Gnome Bard (Sam Riegel) VexвЂ™ahlia, the Half-Elf Ranger (Laura Bailey) and VaxвЂ™ildan, the Half-Elf Rogue (Liam OвЂ™Brien).

The series kicks off with a two-part story about an evil dragon attacking the kingdom, using this as an intro to the Vox Machina team, all of whom have their own unique fantasy powers. Now it is set to premiere on January 28 on Amazon Prime. Amazon swooped in and picked the series up, ordering another 14 episodes of the show. That kind of money allowed them to expand the special into a 10-episode season and also attracted the attention of bigger fish. It did more than well, breaking Kickstarter records for Film & Video and raising $11.3 million dollars. In 2019 Critical Role launched a Kickstarter campaign to create a 22-minute animated special based on the Vox Machina campaign. The name Vox Machina means вЂњvoice machineвЂќ and is a nod to the fact that everyone participating is a voice actor. Their first campaign was a massive success, and theyвЂ™ve gone on to grow into a sizeable content juggernaut on the internet and are now on their third campaign, all based in the land of Exandria. So first, for those of you who donвЂ™t know what Critical Role is and are too lazy to go to their FAQ page, here are the basics: The web series is a live-streamed RPG game put on by a collection of voice actors. However, the reality is probably that the majority of people know little to nothing about tabletop gaming, so I can discuss whether The Legend of Vox Machina is watchable for people like me, who exist outside of a niche fanbase. (ThatвЂ™s a D&D character that Google tells me is blind.) We got screeners for the first six episodes, and I came into it blinder than a balhannoth on a stormy night. That is all to say that I am coming with especially fresh eyes to review AmazonвЂ™s new animated series The Legend of Vox Machina, the show based on the first campaign of the wildly popular tabletop gaming series Critical Role. I havenвЂ™t, though, so I pretty much know the bare minimum someone who writes for a site like The Escapist should know. I suppose we all have our own blind spots in nerdom, but I always felt like I should have at least tried out a Dungeons & Dragons campaign once or maybe just watched more than 10 seconds of a game going on at MAGFest one year.

Vox machina animated