Critical Role Reveals Surprise Crossover Between Campaigns

By Christian Hoffer

The latest episode of Critical Role served as the start of a crossover between all three campaigns of the popular D&D Actual Play show. In the latest episode of the series, which debuted on Twitch on Thursday, Caleb and Beau of The Mighty Nein (the protagonists of the second Critical Role campaign) made a surprise appearance to aid the Bell's Hells (the current protagonists) in destroying a Malleus Key, a strange contraption that could potentially utilize magical ley lines to free the god-eating Predathos from its prison within the red moon Ruidus. As the pair appeared as NPCs for this campaign, both Beau and Caleb were played by Matthew Mercer instead of by players Liam O'Brien and Marisha Ray. However, Mercer had O'Brien and Ray make several rolls to determine their success in an "off-screen" mission to sabotage a different Malleus Key.

Beau and Caleb aren't connected to any Bell's Hells characters, but their appearance continues a plot thread from the second campaign in which the pair attempted to keep track of the Cerberus Assembly and purge the powerful consortium of magic users of its dubious elements. The Cerberus Assembly member Ludinus Da'leth has been the central planner of the plot to free Predathos, and has been a powerful entity in the Critical Role world of Exandria since the second campaign. 

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Interestingly, Critical Role has already brought back characters from the first campaign, with members of Vox Machina aiding Bell's Hells in resurrecting Laudna, who is also played by Ray. Curiously, O'Brien's current character Orym has ties to Ray's Vox Machina character Keyleth and has even called on Keyleth to aid them in their upcoming assault on the Malleus Key. Assuming that Keyleth appears in the next couple of episodes, we could see all three of Ray's Critical Role characters interacting with each other at the same time. 

The 8th anniversary episode of Critical Role will air next week. New episodes air first on Twitch on Thursdays and then on YouTube VOD the following Monday.

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