"The Legend of Vox Machina" Season 2 - Episode 3

The cast confirmed during their Twitch watch party that the lack of music throughout the episode (until the very end) was a deliberate choice. Mary Elizabeth McGlynn and Will Friedle (who play Zahra and Kashaw) were among the first guests that played during Campaign 1...they became beloved members of the community and went on to make several return appearances. (Matt even filling in for them and doing fairly spot-on impersonations at times when the main cast interacted with them off the cuff in-game, as obviously Mary and Will couldn't be there in those random instances...but their importance to the cast and the story had grown so much that it became inconceivable that they wouldn't be included). Neither of them had ever played D&D prior to that, yet both of them took to it immediately. Will absolutely played Kash just as dry, snarky and sarcastic as he's portrayed in the animation...but he has a cynical truthfulness to him that's oddly endearing. It's easy for a character like that to come off as an A-hole, but he has just the right amount of empathy and heart to make him likeable. You gals are right that the cast absolutely comes to completely embody their characters over time...they take on a life of their own and they've talked about how sometimes they'll make decisions that surprise the players. It's also downright amazing how these imaginary people can teach us about ourselves, you were spot on about that. Marisha in particular has talked about how much Keyleth came to be like her imaginary best friend...by the end of the campaign she had learned so much from Keyleth, to the point that she admits that roleplaying as Keyleth taught her how to be a better person. Kiki was so much more empathetic and compassionate than Marisha felt she was herself, that living in her skin for so long helped Marisha to understand people like that in the real world and have more patience with them than she had been capable of previously.

Matthew A. LeBlanc

Critter fun facts: Vex died. She died and there will be major ramifications going forward. So the story behind the beard is that there is an item called the belt of dwarven kind which among other things forces you to grow a bear with magic. And a fun little Easter egg is that when grog first got his beard vax shaved half of it off (referenced when grog got clipped by the thing) which lead Travis to actually break a mechanical pencil in real life. Liam thinks in hinds sight he might have gone too far but everyone thinks it’s funny looking back. Anyway it is just a really cool aesthetic that grog adopted around the briarwood arc. The vax, keyleth, and kashaw triangle is pretty accurate to the show. Marisha once lamented that she didn’t have this problem in actual high school. Zarah in this version appears to be a hybrid between herself and the owner of the slayers take. As a consequence her and kash’s dynamic is a bit flipped with her being the apathetic one and kash caring about stuff. I just find it a bit funny. If you are referring to the message I did, I think I said Percy had good roles until campaign two. Though the triggering the trap thing and getting vex killed still happened. And it’s something he has to live with for… however long he lives with it. Ominous… Ya, in the campaign it takes them about twenty to thirty episodes to find all the vestiges with each one having their own mini arc. Finally I like that you brought the mental health up because it is a surprising theme in the series. First with Percy leading to some interesting philosophical discussions between the players and the dm about what constitutes an alignment shift, as well as a hilarious joke about giving the dark specter of Percy’s soul a mini. Then later in campaign two more explicitly with… well hopefully you see. And in one of the campaigns there is also a guy who has big therapist/youth pastor energy if you catch my meaning. Trust me you’ll know when you see them.