Critical Role's New Campaign Features Some Surprising Characters

By Christian Hoffer

Critical Role launched a brand new campaign this week, but fans were surprised by who appeared in the first episode. Critical Role launched the start of a brand new Dungeons & Dragons campaign this week, giving players a chance to dive head-first into a brand new story from the start. The show promised that the new campaign would feature some "new surprises" and would "mix things up" and that was evidenced from the very beginning as the cast began to introduce their new characters. [Spoilers for Campaign 3 follows.]

The first episode of Critical Role's new campaign not only featured a special guest, but also three returning characters from past one-shots or other D&D storylines. Liam O'Brien and Ashley Johnson both brought back their characters Orym and Fearn from the Exandria Unlimited mini-campaign that ran over the summer. Joining the pair was special guest Robbie Daymond, who also brought back his character Dorian from Exandria Unlimited. O'Brien, Johnson, and Daymond weren't the only cast members to bring back one of their previous characters - Travis Willingham is playing Sir Bertrand Bell from the "Search For Grog" one-shot that aired way back in 2019. Interestingly, Bell is a Level 5 character, while the rest of the adventuring party is at Level 3.

Addressing the new party make-up on Twitter, Critical Role Dungeon Master Matt Mercer noted that both Johnson and O'Brien brought character concepts they were toying with for Campaign 3 over to Exandria Unlimited, where they had the chance to develop them with Aabria Iyengar. There was no expectation to carry the characters over to Campaign 3, but the two players enjoyed the characters so much, they decided to keep using them moving forward. Daymond was brought in a special guest to help carry them forward over into Campaign 3. 

Not every character in Campaign 3 is an existing character in Critical Role continuity. Marisha Ray is playing the Warlock/Sorcerer Laudna, Laura Bailey is playing the human sorcerer Imogen, Taliesin Jaffe is playing the Earth Genasi Barbarian Ashton Greymoore, and Sam Riegel is playing an automaton Cleric named Fresh Cut Grass or FCG for short. 

You can check out the official character art of all the new and returning characters by Hannah Friederichs below: 

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