If you’ve scrolled through TikTok within the last month, you may have noticed cheeky ads for a new Amazon Prime series called “The Legend of Vox Machina.”
What you may not realize is that this animated series is an adaptation that contains over a thousand hours of backstory and a Kickstarter campaign that broke the site’s record for most funded film or television project of all time.
Needless to say, Prime was eager to pick up the series in the hopes of pulling in a broader audience.
This series has its origins in a web series titled “Critical Role” that started in 2015, broadcast on Twitch and YouTube and hosted by the production company Geek & Sundry. The series consists of professional voice actors playing Dungeons & Dragons campaigns led by Matt Mercer, famous for his video game and anime voice acting in over 400 roles, including Levi Ackerman in “Attack on Titan” and Jotaro Kujo in “JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure.”
“Critical Role” has run for two completed campaigns with a third currently underway, and its first episode has garnered over 18 million views on YouTube.
“Vox Machina” is based on the series’ first campaign. Released in weekly three-episode increments, it is just as exciting as the original campaign, returning almost all of the original voice actors and building off of some of the story arcs presented in the original podcast.
Although the series does not pause for “perception checks” and “death-saving rolls,” the original D&D element is still felt throughout, with several nods to dice and D&D-accurate monsters and spells.
This series is also a great way for new and aspiring D&D players to dip their toes into the genre. In fact, you don’t have to play or even understand D&D to appreciate the beautiful visual story-telling of “Vox Machina,” a band of misfit mercenaries on a quest to save the realm.
I’m not too keen on visual adaptations of my favorite media, but this series has me squealing, shaking and jumping up and down for the characters I have come to love over the past few years.
Tonight’s episodes will wrap up season one of the adventures of Keyleth, Grog, Percy, Scanlin, Pike, Vax and Vex and are sure to include more wild escapades and life-threatening heroics in a finale that you certainly shouldn’t miss.
