Fortnite's New Skin Looks an Awful Lot Like a Critical Role Character

Critical Role players have noticed that Fortnite's newest skin looks an awful lot like Keyleth from Vox Machina. Yesterday, Fortnite unveiled its new "Autumn Queen" skin, which can be purchased now from the Item Shop. The Autumn Queen is a redheaded woman wearing a cape made of autumn leaves and a crown made of deer horns, and she bears an uncanny resemblance to Critical Role cast member Marisha Ray. Not only does the Autumn Queen share Ray's dislike of shirt sleeves, her outfit looks almost identical to a costume worn by Ray in the title sequence for the first campaign of Critical Role.

Critical Role is a web series featuring a group of voice actors playing Dungeons & Dragons. During the first campaign, Ray played the druid Keyleth, who wore both a crown of antlers and a cape of leaves. While the resemblance is likely coincidental, more than a few fans have noted the similarities, including Ray's husband (and Critical Role's Dungeon Master) Matthew Mercer.

Maybe inspired...by? Hahahaha https://t.co/WDmrHkpW1x

— Matthew Mercer (@matthewmercer) November 28, 2019

Mercer noted in a subsequent tweet that the skin was a playful nod or reference, if not just purely coincidental. You can check out Ray's depiction of Keyleth below for comparison:

While Critical Role doesn't have quite the reach as Fortnite, the show has had an incredibly successful couple of years. In addition to launching their own Twitch channel, which airs multiple new shows a week, Critical Role also broke Kickstarter records while raising money to fund production of an animated series based on their first campaign. Critical Role's animated series was later picked up by Amazon Prime (complete with a renewal order for a second season) and the show also announced partnerships with Funko POP! among others to produce new merchandise for wide release.