The Legend of Vox Machina - Critical Role Origin Moments Reaction 

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Watching people become Critters is just so much fun.

On the watch along, Matt cried as Keyleth dropped that Sun Bomb on Silas. Matt Mercer and Marisha Ray are married and it was literally a husband shedding tears of joy for his wife .

Fun fact. When Matt says "How do you wanna do this", that's his iconic sentence when a session Boss is taken out, inviting the player to describe in which way the final blow has been struck (usually it's welcomed with roars of joy by the players). So the fact Matt is using it for the door is actually a joke about how the door was as tough as a boss 😁

Fun fact: Taliesin Jaffe, the voice of Percy also played one of Michael Keaton's sons in the movie, "Mr. Mom".

Kinda wish they had continue with liam's part when jumping out the window. Thinking he was going to die, he was talking about the last thought vax would have.

Percy's coughing right after Vax kissed Keyleth wasn't just a 'this is awkward' joke, he was corrupted. They had been in Whitestone for a few days (in hiding) and the whole city was was corrupted from Delilah's necrotic magic, which is why the whole place looks like shit in the show. The corruption can infect people and Taliesin had rolled bad to resist it. 'Persistent cough', as Sam called out, was one of the symptoms of the corruption.

The only time he had unlimited ammo was when the demon took full control in the finale. All the other episodes they actually tracked ammo/reloads very carefully.

I'm so happy yall watched the original moments! It's so fun to see them side by side

Quick note on Chenga/Jenga - in the original stream it was actually useful since the characters had earrings they could use to telepathically communicate with each other. So in the stream clip at 11:40 and 11:50, you can see Liam start to tug his ear, which was their shortcut way of indicating they were using the item. So he was going to warn the other group with the "Jenga" code word for "I'm in trouble, help!" but he interrupts himself the first time and the clip ends before he says it. Vax also uses it to talk to Scanlan at 21:00.

I think it was Taliesin who came up with part of the curse and Matt built on it, as he does all their ideas, so Taliesin knew he was cursed but Percy didn't. In the campaign wrap-up he pointed out that it was his idea originally that the list, the names on his gun, would never run out. It would've just kept adding new names. About the music, he's won an Emmy so he has some idea :)

So happy you guys loved the Scanlan song! Season 2 has even more songs! Make sure you listen to the end credits songs too in season2!

The *Lance of Dragon Slaying* was a not-so-subtle reference to the *Dragonlance* franchise, which is both a D&D second edition (and later ones) setting and an *_amazing_* fantasy book series set in the same world. Both Liam O'Brien (Vax'ildan) and Matthew Mercer (the Dungeon Master) are huge Dragonlance fans, and this shows in several storylines in Critical Role. Joe Manganiello, a handsome and talented actor which you might have seen in Spider-Man or True Blood (among others), also a friend of Critical Role and a guest player later in campaign 1 (hopefully we'll see his character in later seasons), has been trying for years to push for a movie or TV show based on Dragonlance. Rumors (and minor hints by one of the writers) suggest he finally succeeded in getting the idea approved. So get ready to see the best fantasy story ever written on your screen. As for the magic item itself... will it come back in season 2? Will it be the key to defeat the Chroma Conclave? Stay tuned to find out! 😉

One of Matt's most amazing talents is his foley work. Just listen to him uncork a wine bottle and pour it, pure ASMR

For the sun tree, in the campaign, Pike had not been seen by the Briarwoods, but they did know about Trinket, so there was no Pike but a bear on the tree, in the animation, Pike had been seen at the dinner but they hadn't seen Trinket at all. (Which also is why the wraiths didn't care about the bear when murderizing everyone.)

Percy's Backstory is he was THERE when Lord and Lady Briarwood killed his family They used him in torturing him, leading to him to buld his Revolver "The List" which has a Demon of vengeance linked to it In the Campaign, he knew nearly everything. But, his character knew nothing

Fun Fact: Taliesin (Percy's IRL Player and VA) actually improvised a good chunk of the stuff when it came to the Briarwood Arc of the campaign in terms of his revenge. So a bunch of No Mercy Percy was from improve and lucky roles (which is at its peak when Taliesin rolled 7 nat 20's in a row against Prof Anderson).

Sam writes the songs with his brother in law Peter Habib, who has a music production company called Mr. Fantastic. Sam can sing and write, but he's not a musician. He was into acapella singing in college. Sam once wrote and original rap in advance so he could perform it on stage at a live CR show. It was a bit meta because it referenced the critter audience, so it probably won't make it into the show - at least not without a rewrite.

It’s impossible to explain to people the brilliance of matts world building and story telling without seeing it in real time like this. I don’t know how he hasn’t drifted into alternative reality already. Obviously helped by the casts ability to run with it but his ability to incorporate things so dynamically is true improv masterclass. Loving the two of you!

So when Mathew Mercer said it waa time for break after Percy shot the guys hand off scene, it just them taking like a 20 minute intermission in the middle of thiee like 3-4 hour session so they didn't have to wait that long.

Just a quick crash course in DnD! Characters have Hitpoints you can see their hitpoint value on their sheet occasionally when it flashes. For example, at their level with the encounter with the Briarwoods, Percy had a total of 91 HP. Vax likely had somewhere around 70-90 HP at this level. Taking 21 points of necrotic (a type of damage) would have been 1/4 of his HP in a single hit!!

The story behind the Sun Tree is that it was planted there by the Dawn Father, aka the sun god, so i think it was pretty neat that they made it so the tree helped Keyleth make the sunbeam so powerful to kill Sylas. That whole scene was just beautiful

Hope you had fun reacting to Vox Machina, wanted to ask if you have any interest reacting to the behind the scenes "The Legend of the Cast of The Legend of Vox Machina". Much love from Finland! :)

You absolutely need to watch a compilation of Scanlan songs. Sam Riegel is incredible and sang pretty much every episode

The Scanlan recap was shown at NYCC last year with the full cast there. Was great.

Wait til y’all hear the jams sam gets up to in season two. Whole new level of bop

Matt is a damn good DM with that level of improvisations. And with Pike or not, I think Keyleth's moment in the show was incredibly epic, also thanks to the soundtrack and visuals. You'll gonna love season 2.

These voice actors be voice acting too, Liam O'Brien is in Rebels, he and Sam Riegel are both in Clone Wars and the Bad Batch, and Travis Willingham is in Fallen Order. I rewatched bad batch after watching season two of vox machina and it was just "now Liam has captured Liam to turn him over to Liam"

Love seeing your reactions to this guys. Scanlan's recap is something else, definitely looking forward to your season 2 reactions

Oh, your reaction to the Season 1 recap was so fun, everything I had hoped for! It had no business being that good! As far as DMCA worries for it, I think you're okay on these little Amazon ads they put out to advertise the show: It's not part of the shoe itself, and I can't imagine they'd be upset with folks showing an advert foe the actual show! As far as worrying about folks in the comments accidentally spoiling episodes on Season 2, I follow about 2 dozen Vox Machina reaction channels, and invariably the reacters thank Critters for doing a great job of providing background detail without spoiling episodes, even though most of us have rewatched these often enough to repeat lines in our sleep! Like these origin moments, fans want you to experience it as we did for the first time, unspoiled by foreknowledge so you can go through all the emotional rollercoasters we did! And it's fun to be able to answer questions real-time.

Thank you for this video. That was a fun ride down memory lane. I cannot wait for your season 2 reactions.

It's so fun watching you guys react to Vox Machina and delve further into becoming Critters. I'm glad you enjoyed watching the scene origins from the stream!

The right hand/left hand thing seems to be unrelated. Percy has used his right hand predominantly (first tavern brawl, final fight with Brimscythe), but used his left on occasion (first fight against Brimscythe, and when facing Desmond). Of course, after S1 Ep12, we only see him shoot with his right...for reasons. The infinite ammo ability seems linked to the smoke appearing, not which hand he uses. I think he's just ambidextrous.

That attempt at opening the door became a running joke throughout the campaigns every time they came against a door.

Taliesin Jaffe is pronounced: TAL-uh-Sin JAF-ee Emphasis on the first syllable of each name. Jaffe rhymes with laffy taffy.

I love this video, I always love seeing new people dive into this weird and magical rabbithole XD

The List, Percy's gun, in the campaign was something he meticulously crafted himself (man literally invented guns in this world, his is the only one - for now) and had a few different chambers. One did fire damage, one did ice damage. I can't remember if there were others, but they were considered magical damage for things that are immune to nonmagical damage. After Scanlan threw it into the acid he no longer really had a magical weapon besides the sword of dragon slaying, which he used VERY little, until he got the Spoiler Item from Ripley that let him deal magic damage again. But he very much did make all of his ammo and had to buy black powder and all that.

30:45 The animators have a love-hate relationship with Trinket. They love him but he is very hard to draw, which is why he was benched for most of the season. Thankfully, Trinket has a more prominent role in season 2.

Recommend the making of the show playlist. It gives a lot of insight of how they made it

Kiki actually has a spell that allows her to communicate with nature and developed a sort of platonic relationship with the suntree. They had a few entertaining conversations. Also the cast made alot of jokes at matt's expense for subtly flirting with Marisha (kiki) who was his gf now wife.

There is indeed a season 1 soundtrack and we recently got the season 2 soundtrack as well.

I wish more reactors would do this! Love it

They definitely nailed the recap, a good song AND a functional reminder going into the new season, a difficult balance to pull off :D The music in S2 is even better than S1, can't wait to see your reactions!

You guys would probably really love to see "The Legend of the Legend of Vox Machina" behind the scenes series they did before season 1 came out. It really tells you a lot about the process of making an animated show. It's best to watch them in order. But I HIGHLY recommend them!

Omg I wish more reaction channels did this!!! ❤❤

30:31 The dinner fight in the campaign had a different match up. Pike was benched way earlier in the campaign so she wasn't at the dinner. Tiberius whose player permanently left the campaign soon after was omitted from the TV series' adaptation. This is why the tree had an extra body described to be a man painted red. Trinket was hanging outside the dinner party so he managed to run in to fight.

The line in the recap song "Yo, what the fuck is up with that" is actually a reference to Campaign 3 where the party regularly plays the rousing game of "Wtf is up with that" cus that whole crew is just a big messed up question mark.

Welcome to being a Critter! Your energy is so great.

51:13 😂 in my experience that's a very common reaction to anything Sam Riegel. I've been watching Critical Role for over 2 years, am fully caught up with all campaigns and I _still_ get surprised at every turn by this fucker (affectionate) XD

For Percy's gun - in the campaign he was specified to be left-handed, and I think when Orthax is in control he tends to use his right hand instead, but I don't think it's consistent. What is consistent is that his gun only holds 6 shots, and in the show they track those really carefully EXCEPT when Orthax is running the show, in which case the ammo is effectively magically generated and can't run out. They even mention it in the final shootout scene in the last episode of season 1, "he has to reload eventually... right?" There are magical items in D&D that provide unlimited ammo (usually for bows and arrows), so there's certainly precedent for that type of magical effect :) As someone who has watched the show a ton of times, it's definitely worth a rewatch, you will pick up more and more. Especially if you go back and rewatch after season 2!

thanks for this reaction! you guys are so fun and your energy is so refreshing!!

This is really fun! A bit sad that you seem to have [edit: initially] watched with auto-generated captions on when Campaign 1 has such amazing, fan-made real English captions. EDIT: Oh good, you found them. :)

The recap song/rap - although totally awesome - totally missed it's chance to mention the artistic license of the cyclops that Scanlan vanqished... I mean he did mention it during the season finale....

Yessssss join the Critter crew! I, like many critters, are super stoked for the continuation of VM and the now-announced Mighty Nein (campaign 2) animated series!!!

Another good watch is a RU-vid video with all of scanlans songs from the campaign. He riffs on pop tunes and it’s pretty great, although I’d maybe only watch the first half or so just in case of spoilers

We love Gilmore in this house! 😁 He is one of the cast's favorite characters (along with Allura and Kima), and Matt was very protective of him when they were creating this show. You should check out the Kickstarter announcement, which has Matt, Travis, Marisha, and a late arrival of Sam. Their shock is amazing; they asked for a quarter million to be fundraiser over 45 days and ended up with 4 million in the first 24 hours, totalling out to 11 million. Taliesin didn't know about the demon. He actually gave Matt a list of possibilities, including the option that it was all in his head and that it was truly him. You're right about the ammo. It has to be in control or his ammo is limited. Every time Percy is in control, his ammo is tightly counted. The Briarwoods showing up woke up the demon because that was the first chance to get what it wanted. That's why he slowly got darker over the season.

Season 2 is gonna knock yer socks off! Can't wait to see it!

TWO OF US!!! TWO OF US!!!

Would love to see more Critical Role reactions. So many great parts that were never put into the show.

OH, you are not ready, it's one hell of a ride.

For the Sun Tree moment, the effigy bodies were the ones the Briarwoods saw fighting them in Emon. In the streamed campaign, Pike wasn't there (Ashley was filming Blindspot) & Tiberius the dragonborn was (actor Orion was fired/let go from the show 2 or 3 sessions later). So the bodies were Tiberius = green tunic w/ red painted skin; Scanlan = child in a purple silk shirt; Keyleth = green tunic w/ red painted hair; Vex = dark haired woman in blacks and furs; Vax = dark haired man in blacks and furs; Grog = heavy-set man w/ head shaved w/ dark marks on face; Trinket = bear. Matt didn't describe a body meant to look like Percy so I don't know if we can assume either way that a body was up there made to look like him or not. Funny enough, the actress sitting in on that session as a guest was playing a Tiefling named Lyra & she was also in the fight against the Briarwoods. But Matt didn't describe a body looking like her either. But in the adaptation for the animated show, since they changed it so that Pike was at the dinner, they had to have a second child body hanging to look like her. And I don't think Trinket was in the fight in the animated show, so there was no bear effigy.

percy had 6 shots in his gun and had to reload after.

Sam's cup is supposed to be to scale if he were a gnome like Scanlan.

His gun also jammed a lot.

Not into animation, but I'm here to see how Mad is progressing in her pregnancy. Best wishes to both. Continue to cherish each other every moment without taking one another for granted. I can tell both MAC cultivate zen yet still very metal.

Mathew Mercer is a genius story teller

Season 2 is completely 🔥🔥🔥. Scanlan’s songs in Season 2 are a ton of fun, as well! For more about Sam Riegel (including his Broadway career) and the rest of the cast, you might want to check out Between the Sheets-It is an interview format with Ashley Johnson’s (Pike) fiance asking the questions. Can’t wait for y’all’s season 2 reacts!

For reference, the actor who plays Percy, his name is pronounced tal-eh-sin. Not trying to be mean, promise

Listening to people try and pronounce taliesin's name is always so funny XD Tal-i-sen :P

I think you guys would enjoy playing dnd. You should give it a shot.

you guys should react to more videos like this.

The sun tree scene hits better/harder if you have watched campaign 3 also

Percy's gun was a lot of more useful in the original campaign. His pepperbox maybe didn't do all that much damage per individual bullet, but he could deliver a lot of them. He also had Bad News earlier.

You should search RU-vid for "All of Scanlan's Songs"

I haven't checked since I heard it about 3 months back, but supposedly none of the songs in vox machina are copyright protected.

If you ever get a chance to watch the original version of the chroma conclave attacking emon it's crazy

Be sure not to skip the credits of s2 episodes, some episodes have great original songs (especially e10)

Can I make a Scanlan suggestion video for y'all? It's a playlist of every song he actually sang/parodied/made up in the campaign. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-hjTQ5q-DaEw.html

no, the left hand right hand thing is wrong. sorry

Season 2 ?

maby its a late comment but at this moment in the game percy is a gunsligner so sometime if the player roll to low the guns misfire

31:56 Fun fact. People were really mad that they RPed a non-consensual kiss out of nowhere and Liam got a bit of flak for it. So it makes sense that they reworked the kiss into a funny bathos moment

Taliesin's name is pronounced "TAL-ih-sin", by the way 🙂

I never expected you guys to watch the actual campaign clips..but holy shit fuck yes I'm so happy you are. Was beyond excited to see the first Vox Machina reaction uploaded, and now THIS!?! If there was ever a question in anyone's mind before it should be gone now. You guys are 2 new critters. Welcome.

I also recommend the behind the scenes videos: ru-vid.com/group/PL1tiwbzkOjQwJdoNetaNJE1zZVOE7xi8u And Scanlan's season 1 recap song: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-j_eTmBPtYb4.html

Hey there. I hope you liked the first five Rankin/Bass films I suggested before. But if you haven't seen them yet, then may I suggest you make a list of future requests? Because here are three more suggestions: The Wacky World of Mother Goose ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-DlMg6FcQNIM.html The Daydreamer ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-41tXNo-2U1k.html Willy McBean and his Magic Machine ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-T2GSwItMMbY.html Hope these movies and more. Thank you.

***POTENTIAL SPOILER FOR FUTURE SHOW*** The Sun Tree moment is VERY important for Campaign 3. Not sure if you all have any interest in watching the campaigns themselves... they can be quite the commitment but IF Campaign 3 were to ever get animated... just remember the Sun Tree moment.

Man, the Marisha Ray bookhatting goes way back!

CR makes around 80k from their main sponsor per episode. Not sure how much from their second one. i guess the same. Also money from twitch and youtube. They have overprized merch that is sold out in minutes. They get plenty of crowd funding if needed. Their members are well paid voice actors. Sam i think is rich. Amazon still paid them for their show like any regular one that has that pull. And I think they appear on other shows or do ads for movies with one shots. They are about to become a big corp. Maybe even the new main RPG. I think they do well. And I dont think they will be any more morally correct than any other american company.

Fun Fact: Scanlan was completely inspired by Eminem, and they do end up talking about it on the season 2 recaps they recorded! Be sure to check out the S2 recaps critical role did after you finish season 2!

@MAC React Taliesin is pronounced Tal-Le-Sin. You can just call him Tal for short. Also, you have Percy and Orthax backward. Percy is left-handed and, thus, he shoots with his left hand. Orthax, on the other hand, is right-handed. When Orthax is in control and pumping power through Percy, The List is wielded in his right hand. If you'll remember, in the last episode of Season One, Percy wields The List with his right hand and blocks the shot with his left because his left hand is the one he controls. For the Sun Tree Moment, in the Campaign, Pike wasn't with them because Ashley was in New York shooting Blindspot so The Briarwoods never saw Pike. You'll notice there's only one child hung up in the Campaign and not 2. However, in the Campaign, Trinket DID accompany them to the Feast of Realms so The Briarwood saw him. That's why they strung up a dead Trinket in the Campaign. In the Animated Series, if you'll remember, they left Trinket at the Keep when they went to The Feast of Realms and, furthermore, left him at the Keep when they went to Whitestone so The Briarwoods never met Trinket in the Animated Series. Couple Fun Facts about Sam Riegel. One, he's Jewish and hails from the East Coast so that accent that you hear during his rap? Yeah that's his natural accent coming through. Two, that Rap was debuted at a Comic Con and he was asked, after they debuted it, why a rap? Sam's answer? "Because I wanted to rap."

Oh my gosh you guys, I've been eagerly awaiting your season 2 reactions. Oh well, I guess a little while longer isn't the end of the world. ☺

Please, please stream Campaign 2. You will love the Might Nein.