Prime Video's hit animated show The Legend of Vox Machina returns for season 3 on October 3, and the Dungeons & Dragons-style adventures are taking a darker turn than ever before. The project, which blossomed as part of a series of Critical Role live streams, has ballooned into a phenomenon that expands far beyond the tabletop role-playing circles from whence it originated. Matthew Mercer's fictional world of Exandria now has countless fans worldwide breathlessly awaiting the next chapter and anticipating the final destruction of the Chroma Conclave.

The Legend of Vox Machina season 2 saw Vax give his life for his sister, Vex, and become the Champion of Ravens after she brought him back to life and he abandoned his mortal form. Meanwhile, Vox Machina ed forces with Raishan the green dragon, and the alliance will test more than their mettle in the new batch of episodes. As the larger mission of saving Exandria unfolds, fans will have the opportunity to get to know both their favorite characters even better and visit previously unseen locations in animated form.

Screen Rant interviewed Matt Mercer, Sam Riegel, Laura Bailey, and Taliesin Jaffe about their favorite aspects of The Legend of Vox Machina season 3. The team teased highlights from their character arcs, important expansions on Critical Role lore, and even some of their most cherished Easter eggs.

Even Critical Role Aficionados Will Break New Ground In The Legend Of Vox Machina Season 3

“We get to tweak and add and change and make it the best version we can for animation.”

Screen Rant: Matt, we get to explore some of the Vox Machina NPC backstories in a way that we weren't able to in the original campaign. What was your favorite part of getting to dig into some of these characters?

Matthew Mercer: My favorite part was being able to actually express these stories, finally. A lot of these bits I got to talk about in post-campaign wrap-up aspects or allude to at s and stuff, but never got to really fully experience and flesh out. And now that we get to go back and adapt these stories for this medium, we get to take the time to see other perspectives of the world and the story.

Alongside Vox Machina, we can go back and divide the group in places where it allows space for some of these secondary characters to step in to the light and learn more about them and live with them and travel with them. And it's one of my favorite facets of the fact that we've gotten to be able to adapt this. We get to take all the best parts of it, and we get to tweak and add and change and make it the best version we can for animation. Yah, I'm loving it.

Breaking Down The Character Journeys In The Legend Of Vox Machina Season 3

Everyone can agree that “it's a beautiful journey to go on this season.”

Screen Rant: Sam, I love Scanlan's arc this season. Can you talk to me a little bit about how learning he has a daughter has impacted his motivation, not only as a person, but as an adventurer?

Sam Riegel: I think it's changed everything about his outlook. The first season, he is just searching for a good time. The second season, he realizes he needs more than that. And now the third season, he realizes why. I think he realizes that none of his relationships have actually been relationships, and he just is now [having some].

Also, through knowing his friends in Vox Machina, he's seen what a real relationship and real family can be. And so, he wants to see if he can have one of those for himself. It's a real personal journey for him, and it definitely affects him by the end of the season. He makes a bunch of mistakes along the way, but he's trying to do it for all the right reasons.

Screen Rant: Taliesin, I love that we see Percy striving for hope and happiness instead of revenge. Can you talk to me a little bit about this change in direction for Percy, and how he has to fight against that instinct of looking for revenge with aspects of his past still not put to bed?

Taliesin Jaffe: He was a character who was so specifically motivated by all of this anger that when it finally - I'll say it didn't vanish, but it dissipated for a while - he then got to look around and see the mess that he had made of everything. Then he spent a season continuing to make that mess, trying to figure out his footing.

It was nice to actually get a hold on it and start rebuilding. And, since we are talking about how things move, he's having the opportunity to really get a dark reflection of where that path could have gone. At the very least, [he's] trying to create grace that may have saved him and trying to talk to himself in that way regardless of the outcome.

Screen Rant: Laura, I love Vex's journey, especially as she has to face all of these family dynamics and feelings that she doesn't want to deal with. What, for you, is the most interesting part of Vex's interpersonal relationships within Vox Machina? While having to deal with not only her past with her father, but the fact that her brother has chosen to realistically sacrifice himself for her.

Laura Bailey: It's a lot of grief, right? What's really beautiful is Vex's walls and her need for her to make people believe that she has everything together and she doesn't really need them. For Percy to be the one to help her shed that layer - in more ways than one, baby - and to help her realize it's okay to be vulnerable, it's okay to show that part of yourself. And then realizing that too late and what that means and that regret and finding that within herself of going, "I can't keep shutting people out because things are finite, and they need to know what they mean." Yeah, it's a beautiful journey to go on this season.

Answering The Age-Old Question Of Why Vox Machina’s Vex Senses Dragons

Sometimes the answer really is just, "It's on my character sheet."

Screen Rant: Can you tease if we're going to get into the origins of Vex's connection to the dragons and her ability to sense when they're around?

Sam Riegel: We just sort of say why, I think. Is that this season? I can't . Maybe it's this season where you say, like, "I've studied dragons. That's why I can sense them," or something.

Laura Bailey: Yeah, but I said that the first dragon fight. She just has an amazing ability.

Matthew Mercer: Yeah, it's one of those fantasy hand waves. Like, "There's reasons, but you get it."

Laura Bailey: "She studied them, she knows."

Taliesin Jaffe: "It's on my character sheet."

More Critical Role Easter Eggs & Exandria Expansion Await In Vox Machina Season 3

“The whole Hell sequence is basically all my sketchbooks growing up.”

Screen Rant: I love that we get to visit so many more locations in Exandria this season. Did you each have a favorite spot to explore that we haven't seen before?

Sam Riegel: I really liked going to Ank'Harel, Marquet. We were only there briefly, but we really got a peek into this other continent, and we wrote a language for the area; for all the words that the guards are speaking. We hired a linguist to write the language, so it's like its own translatable language, which is pretty cool.

Laura Bailey: I mean, I wasn't there personally, but I love the Hells.

Matthew Mercer: It was so fun to work out the designs of that. The design language, the creatures, the architecture, the mood... The whole Hell sequence is basically all my sketchbooks growing up, so I was so excited to be a part of all that.

Screen Rant: Matt, is there a character that you haven't fully been able to delve into yet that you really want to in the future, or even in some other medium?

Matthew Mercer: In Exandria, we've only touched on them so much in this campaign, but Artagan is such a delightfully complicated, strange, little mischievous bastard. Hopefully, if we have future seasons, maybe we'll have a chance to see more of him. Other things in development might also have the opportunity too... So, yeah, he's always a fun character to return to.

Screen Rant: There are so many great Easter eggs this season. Do you guys have a favorite?

Laura Bailey: My absolute favorite is Matt's "Ruby of the Sea" song. Love it. Love it. Gets stuck in my head every time I hear it. It's so good.

Matthew Mercer: Even just singing and recording it the first time, it was in my head for two weeks afterward. It still, every now and then, will creep in their first thing in the morning.

Taliesin Jaffe: Our professional cameo in Hell is pretty great.

Sam Riegel: I think seeing a brief of Keyleth as a goldfish was my favorite.

Screen Rant: What, for each of you, has been the most surprising element of returning to the stories of Vox Machina after so much time away? Have there been pieces where you maybe even get a new understanding of the characters?

Laura Bailey: More understanding of the world than what we had when we were playing. As we progress through even Campaign 3, things are being revealed about the world that affect Campaign 1 and the way we viewed it, so it's really cool to get to incorporate some of that into the animated series in ways that we wouldn't have been able to if we hadn't expanded the world like we did.

More About The Legend of Vox Machina Season 3

Everything is at stake in the long-awaited Season 3 of The Legend of Vox Machina The Chroma Conclave’s path of destruction spreads like wildfire while the Cinder King hunts down Vox Machina. Our lovable band of misfits must rise above inner (and outer) demons to try and save their loved ones, Tal’Dorei, and all of Exandria.

Check out our other The Legend of Vox Machina season 3 interviews here:

• The Legend of Vox Machina Cast at SDCC 2024
• Travis Willingham, Marisha Ray, Liam O’Brien & Ashley Johnson

The first 3 episodes of The Legend of Vox Machina season 3 premiere October 3 on Prime Video with new episodes dropping weekly.

Source: Screen Rant Plus