I’ve been more or less sticking to books and other works of writing, but I think I’m going to change it up just for this week. Well, Critical Role does have a comic book series, but that hasn’t mentioned anything yet (even though all the fans know it’s going to be true).

Anyway, Critical Role is a live-stream D&D game hosted by famous voice actor Matthew Mercer. It plays every Thursday and has 7 permanent players (one of which is often missing because she’s shooting a TV show in New York), who are also famous voice actors.

Laura Bailey: Vex’ahlia (Campaign 1), Jester (Campaign 2)

Liam O’Brien: Vax’ildan (Campaign 1), Caleb (Campaign 2)

Travis Willingham: Grog Strongjaw (Campaign 1), Fjord (Campaign 2)

Marisha Ray: Keyleth (Campaign 1), Beauregard (Campaign 2)

Taliesin Jaffe: Percival de Rolo (Campaign 1), Mollymauk (Campaign 2)

Sam Riegel: Scanlan Shorthalt/ Taryon Darrington (Campaign 1), Nott the Brave (Campaign 2)

Ashley Johnson: Pike Trickfoot (Campaign 1), Yasha (Campaign 2)

I’m going to focus on the first campaign since I don’t know enough about their new characters yet. The first campaign follows the adventures of Vox Machina as they travel around the continent (and beyond) on multiple missions—some to save themselves, and some to save the world.

To my knowledge, it’s the first streamed D&D game that’s gathered so much attention and that has had such a global impact. And one of the greatest things about it is that Matthew Mercer has actually included diversity in a way that doesn’t seem forced. There are multiple NPCs who play a very pivotal role in Vox Machina’s adventures that aren’t heterosexual white people.

The three big ones that come to mind are Shaun Gilmore (a fabulously flamboyant merchant sorcerer who looks fabulous in purple), Allura (a powerful arcanist and a well of information), and Lady Kima of Vord (badass paladin of Bahamut). There are some more, but these are the three that are reoccurring.

But I’ll be primarily focusing on Vax’ildan (Vax for short), and Scanlan Shorthalt, because these guys are some of our protagonists.

[image error]Vax, played by voice actor Liam O’Brien, is a bisexual rogue paladin who worships the Raven Queen. He is also Vex’ahlia’s twin brother and eventually becomes Keyleth’s lover. But before his relationship with Keyleth, Vax and Gilmore were very close.

In early episodes, they are very obviously flirting and it’s very apparent that if he hadn’t fallen for Keyleth, Vax and Gilmore could’ve had a relationship. I think to the very end, Gilmore probably still loved Vax (be it like a friend or a lover, I’m not sure).

Even after he properly breaks it off with Gilmore, there are a couple mentions of Vax’s bisexuality throughout the story.

The second character, Scanlan Shorthalt, voiced by Sam Riegel, is a gnome bard. He is [image error]definitely pansexual, which I probably wouldn’t have figured out if it wasn’t for this hilarious scene near the tail end of the Campaign where Scanlan claims falling in love with a human male would be “teenage years” and that’s he’s done a lot of crazier stuff since.

To be completely honest, I don’t think I want to know what crazier could mean.

But throughout the beginning of the campaign, Scanlan is seen wooing women and I don’t think I’ve ever seen him try and seduce men (except for that one time he was tricked into drinking a love potion and fell in love with Percival…). So most likely pansexual, but it’s not really mentioned at all until near the end.

[image error]Sam Riegel plays a second character for a brief period of time. Taryon “Tary” Darrington is a very rich, very unheroic (at the beginning) human artificer. He is confined gay. Though only part of Vox Machina for a brief period of time, Tary does continue to live on through Vox Machina’s thoughts. He even gets his own love story (off screen, unfortunately) and finds his lost lover.

And I briefly mentioned that they had comics releasing periodically about the adventures of Vox Machina before the stream started, so

[image error]maybe we’ll see more of Vax and Gilmore (if it goes that far, I’m not sure).

But I think it’s really cool that a D&D game, especially one that started off as something kind of off-hand, turned into something so huge. I mean, they have thousands of people (me included) who watch them live every bran and either stay up or wake up at ridiculous hours just to watch these “Nerdy-ass voice actors sit around a play Dungeons and Dragons.” And the fact they also have some diversity in there is super cool.

Images:

http://www.takayuuki.deviantart.com/art/Critical-Role-3rd-season-designs-lineup-705405174

https://geekandsundry.com/your-first-look-at-the-official-art-for-the-second-critical-role-campaign/

http://www.criticalrole.wikia.com/wiki/File:Vaxildan.png

http://www.criticalrole.wikia.com/wiki/File:Scanlan.png

http://criticalrole.wikia.com/wiki/Taryon_Darrington

https://geekandsundry.com/critical-role-from-dark-horse-comics/