The Legend of the Story of the Legend of Vox Machina

BRANDON: No one has really tried to adapt an RPG campaign into an animated series. So we are actually breaking new ground. JEN: They created something we didn't know the world needed. Truly, there is something for everyone. MARC: Even if you're immersed in this world, there are still a couple of moments where I think we can surprise you. MATT: Everything that comes out is incredibly cool! (dramatic orchestral music) So, the

story

of Vox Machina takes place on Tal'Dorei, which is a continent on the world of Exandria. It's an area of ​​smaller nations, but there is an overall Sovereign Uriel, who is sort of the leader of the area.

Vox Machina are a group of... I can't really say heroes, but they are people who are trying to get ahead and discovered that it is easier to survive and succeed as a group than independently, so, out of necessity, they They turned into a party. The series begins with a new

story

. This is a narrative of Vox Machina as they come into their own as a group. EUGENE: It's a fantasy series, it's mature, it's fun, it's about camaraderie, it's about friendship. We're going to explore all these amazing fantasy elements that people avoid. We accept that, we love those things.

BRANDON: It's something completely unique in terms of high fantasy. There is no fantasy that is remotely similar to "Legend of Vox Machina." MAE: I think people will be able to look at this and say, oh, this is a show with dragons and demons and everything else, but ultimately it's about this group of friends. MATT: We wanted to capture the spark and magic of when we played at the table, just in a different medium. MEREDITH: I'm so excited to see some really moving and moving scenes. That's what got me into the stream in the first place. MAE: This is something that is very serious and dramatic, but it has moments of intense and beautiful lightness and joy and that literally comes from the fact that it was a group of friends having fun and we, as a writers room, should also be a group of friends. having fun And that was the moment I thought, we did it. (real orchestral music) BRANDON: Well, the writers' room was just great.

Getting to work with all these incredibly talented writers who are huge fans of fantasy and role-playing games. EUGENE: God, all the writers were amazing and they all brought different things to the table. JEN: We had a mix of new and experienced. There's young, excited energy and then wise, relaxed energy, a little bit. KEVIN: There's been a bit of a who's who of what kind of action animation we've done, it's been some of the top notch people. Some really great new voices that come from science fiction, from live action. It's really been a good mix. (Theme "Critical Role") MATT: We had never worked with Brandon before, so this is the first time he and I were able to collaborate on something, but he was just a guy with great ideas, as well as being the guiding person. the production side.

BRANDON: Eugene Son, our story editor, has been a huge help along the way. We really implement all of our notes, go in and have all kinds of great ideas. EUGENE: Jen Muro knows a lot about Critical Role, she's been a fan for a while and could remember a lot of things, like the adventures and things the characters have been through. Mae Catt has so much energy and so many ideas. In that sense, she was fantastic in the writers' room. Kevin and Doc, our amazing writing team that I've had the pleasure of working with over the years.

Their dynamic as a writing team is fantastic. I've never worked with Marc before, but he brings a wealth of experience in comics and live-action television. MATT: We also worked with Daniel Thomsen, who came from the live action world and brought a completely different type of storytelling to the room. Ashly Burch, who he'd never worked with before until "Vox Machina," but she's fantastic beyond just being a talented writer. In fact, she played with us. She played Keg in our second campaign for several episodes as well as a live show. And so I think bringing that to the table made it that much more powerful.

MARC: Everyone was crazy, very, very kind and very, very smart. MATT: I love when in a writers' room everyone is throwing out ideas and everyone is building on each other and it's from all the different facets, just brick by brick you can see the wall come to life. EUGENE: It's fascinating to adapt "The Legend of Vox Machina" from an RPG campaign and try to translate it and bring it to life into an animated series. MAE: An adaptation doesn't need to be beat by beat, so our job as writers was to maintain the spirit of the story and the spirit of each character and the arcs of the characters and what they're going through and act as translators of what happens. . was in what it can be now in animated form.

BRANDON: There will be surprises, there will be things that will change, but at the same time we want to do that because we want the die-hard fans to not just walk in and know everything. You want to be surprised, you want things to change enough. MARC Find a way to get to a place in the story where you're giving the audience what they didn't know they wanted but really needed. EUGENE: When it's a pre-existing property, like a graphic novel, for example, you say, okay, we have to maintain this moment, this is a crucial moment. Maybe we can lose this, maybe we can lose this more.

When you go with a campaign where there are hundreds of hours of material and a lot of it is brilliant. It's like, okay, what are the things that will translate really well to animated series? What have they not seen and what do we think? Wow, okay, we can take this and we can really do something fantastic with it and those are the things that really excite us. JEN: Reducing the source material was a daunting task for me because Matt has a very clear vision and I definitely didn't want to step on that. MATT: Certain ideas must be changed or modified as part of the adaptation.

It is a difficult process. JEN: There were things where we were like, “Oh my God. “He's going to kill us.” And then he was like, “No, it's okay.” We were like, “We were worried for three days about this. " MARC: Matt would always sit there and say, "Yeah, no," that's how it was in the campaign, "but this is better, let's talk about it." "Let's litigate it, let's investigate it. "We're going to try it". MATT: Sometimes the most difficult ideas, the ones that go against what you initially expected, create the most important changes. EUGENE: Every project I've undertaken, research is a big part of it.

You want to immerse yourself and get into that mindset of the world you're exploring. MAE: "Critical Role" is an IP, it's a legacy IP, but it's happening right now. You can interact with the creators of this thing you love right away. MATT: Everyone, for the most part, was able to create an element of the writers' room to answer questions about their particular character, how they would react to certain elements. ...Questions I couldn't have answered as well as they could have. CHRIS: The fact that the cast created their own characters and that Matt, as the game director, created the scenarios and then you are the writers. 'in the room with those people, with that cast.

You can feed off that immediacy. It's like writing a "Spider-Man" script in the room with Stan Lee. MEREDITH: We're working very hard to honor the original canon, the original content, and the original game. BRANDON: These guys don't miss a thing. We're making sure this is very much the show they want to do. MATT: It's been really cool to see everything come together as each thing gets approved and we see each facet start to come together more and more. You can feel the palpable energy of excitement, not only within us, but also in the animation studio and everyone who works in it on the production side.

It's already becoming something very, very special. KEVIN: We're as excited as any Critical Role fan to see how these things turn out. There is nothing better than loving a property and seeing it expand into a new world. He just takes it in a way that you could never imagine as a fan. MATT: We wanted to capture the spark and magic of when we played at the table, just in a different medium. MARC: It'll be like drinking a drink you really like from a bartender you've never met before who adds something and you don't know exactly what it is.

It's like, "Did you put nutmeg in this?" And like, "Oh, I'm not sure, but I love this drink." "Oh, it's delicious. "Give me more of this drink because I like being drunk." If you like getting drunk at Critical Role, then I think you'll like what this series of bartenders have done to it. (epic orchestral music) (theme) Critical role")