History WebVideo / CriticalRoleCampaignOne

* OOCIsSeriousBusiness: In Episode 109, when Vex suggests that the fate of the world is more important than saving a few hundred gold, everyone gasps and Scanlan implies she might be unwell.

* TalkingToHimself: [[spoiler:Sam gets some of it in when Scanlan and Taryon meet, much to the other players' amusement.]]

* AllThereInTheManual: Since the first campaign had been running for two years prior to streaming, everything from small details to major plot elements are explained somewhere outside the recorded shows, as are backstory elements of the characters themselves. Some questions have been answered either on Twitter or in the Q&A episodes, and the group also did an online summary.

** Episode 113 sees Creator/JoeManganiello join the party as the Red Dragonborn Paladin/Barbarian Arkhan. [[RatedMForManly Him, combined with Travis/Grog...]]

** Though to be fair, fraternal twins (which a brother and sister would be) aren't any more likely to look very much like each other than other siblings, aside from being the same age.

* EndingFatigue: Due to the strength of the characters involved, and the mechanics of hand-to-hand fighting in D&D, the two duels between Grog and Kern really drag on. There are basically a lot of rolls that amount to Grog and Kern doing somewhere between six and eight points of damage, and it takes a ''lot'' of six-point damage rolls to get characters with that many hit points down to zero.

* BadassBaritone: [[Creator/WilWheaton Thorbir]] and [[Creator/TravisWillingham Grog]] all have deep voices suitable for intense warriors. [[ManOfAThousandVoices Matt]] sometimes puts one on for villains, such as Sylas Briarwood.

** Ever since the first custom arrow, Percy and Vex's ShipTease had been going on for anywhere between twenty-four and ''fifty-four'' episodes [[labelnote:*]] Episode 15 marks the first time Vex kisses Percy; Episode 45 is arguably the first indication that he has strong feelings for her.[[/labelnote]] before [[spoiler:Vex declares her love for him in Episode 69.]] As of Episode 72, [[spoiler: TheyDo, as Percy gives Vex TheBigDamnKiss in the forest outside Draconia]].

* TriangRelations: Gilmore (A) is in love with Vax'ildan (B) who is in love with Keyleth (C) who isn't sure about Vax, and presumably doesn't have feelings for Gilmore, making this a Type 5.

On March 4, 2019, they launched a Kickstarter to fund an [[WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfVoxMachina animated special]]. This in turn raised over 11 million dollars from a 750 000 dollar goal. Creator/PrimeVideo became the distributor for what now had become an animated series, with the first season depicting the Briarwood arc, and was later renewed for season 2 and 3 in order to depict the Chroma Conclave arc.

* AnyoneCanDie: [[spoiler:All of the original eight members of Vox Machina have died at least once during the campaign, though all but one have been [[BackFromTheDead brought back]].]]

* TheBadGuyWins: [[spoiler: Episode 80. Raishan escapes alive with Thordak's corpse and two of the dragon eggs, with Vex and Scanlan both temporarily dying due to the fight, Keyleth nearly dying instantly from falling in a river of lava, and the entire party overall having been thoroughly outmatched despite their numbers against her.]]
** [[spoiler:Episode 102 -- Vecna is revived successfully, and upon realizing they have no chance against him Vox Machina Plane Shifts to the Feywild.]]

** It seems like Episode 24 is all set to be a confrontation with the Briarwoods. Instead, the entire first half is just Vox Machina screwing around in the week leading up to their arrival. Episode 25, however, [[WhamEpisode makes the wait worth it.]]

** Guest star Arkhan (played by Joe Manganiello) [[spoiler:prepares to destroy the hand of Vecna after the final fight]]. No, wait- [[spoiler:he cuts off his own hand and attaches Vecna's to it, then teleports away, setting up the possibility of a future villain for the next campaign to face]].
* BearsAreBadNews: Averted with Vex's companion, Trinket. Well, unless you're one of the party's enemies.

** [[spoiler:Ultimately {{Subverted}} in Thordak's case as it's revealed that Raishan is TheManBehindTheMan.]]
** As of the fifth and final arc, [[spoiler: Vecna, The Whispered One]] fills this role. Previous arc [[BigBad Big Bads]] [[spoiler: Sylas and Delilah Briarwood]] even serve as his CoDragons.

** In Episode 21, [[spoiler: Kashaw kisses Keyleth]] as he leaves the Slayer's Take.
** Episode 33 sees [[spoiler: Vax kissing Keyleth]] after he nearly dies during the fight with [[spoiler: Professor Anders]], complete with an abrupt LoveConfession.
** Episode 72 has [[spoiler: Percy kiss Vex]] right as the episode ends.

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: Vox Machina defeats Vecna after a long and hard battle, saving the world. However because the group couldn't find a way around Vax's deal with the Raven Queen, Vax [[TheHeroDies dies]] for real, and [[SequelHook Arkhan had attached Vecna's hand to his body and gotten away]], with Matt already confirming that the story will have a follow-up down the road. On the bright side, most of members of Vox Machina get a happy ending to some degree, including Pike and Scanlan finally getting together, and Vex and Percy having children]]. It's bittersweet for fans as well, who've watched 115 episodes and now have to say goodbye to Vox Machina.

** Before leaving Emon, in Episode 14, Percy tells the council to keep him notified if the Briarwoods should return to the city in order to "surprise" them. Upon returning to Emon in Episode 23, Percy's notified that the Briarwoods are indeed returning within a week, and thus he begins planning for his "surprise". In Episode 15, immediately after he learns about the Briarwoods, Percy mentions that he's thinking of making a tazing implement. He finally builds an electro-gauntlet named "Diplomacy" in Episode 24, which is the episode in which the Briarwoods arrive. The first time he uses Diplomacy in a fight is against Sylas Briarwood in Episode 34, which is also the Episode where [[spoiler:both Briarwoods are defeated, although Delilah doesn't die until Episode 35]]. The next time he uses it in a fight is [[spoiler: against Kynan Leore, during a fight with the last person on his List, Dr. Ripley]].

* BreadEggsBreadedEggs: In episode 45, Grog asks a sleep-deprived Percy if he'd like a coffee or an enema, followed by Keyleth suggesting a "coffee-enema".

--> [[spoiler:'''Keyleth:''']] You should know, Raishan, I've stepped on plenty of anthills in my day. Those that don't die, revolt. And guess what? There's some pretty nasty stings from some ants out there. The strength of a colony is stronger than the individual of one great, diseased foot.

* KillTheGod: [[spoiler:With Vecna's revival in episode 101, the story transitions to this for the final arc. There is also a deal in place to kill Orcus when the time comes, though it seemed to have been forgotten since.]]

* TrappedInVillainy: The River Maw tribe were conquered by Kevdak and forcibly assimilated into the Herd of Storms. [[spoiler: Shortly after Grog kills Kevdak, the River Maw's spokesman tells Zanror that they're leaving, and Zanror lets them because he can't afford causalities before fighting Umbrasyl.]]

* TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon: [[spoiler: Vecna's terrifying mobile fortress, the city of Thar Amphala carried upon the shoulders of an immense undead Earth Titan. The final episodes of the campaign concern Vox Machina making their way through the titan's innards, sneaking through Thar Amphala, and scaling the tower of Entropis at the heart of the city, to at last confront Vecna in the FinalBattle at the peak of Entropis.]]

* WakeUpCallBoss: [[spoiler: Umbrasyl is the first member of the Chroma Conclave to be killed, but gave Vox Machina their hardest victory yet, to the point where the party had to stop and rest inbetween battles with the dragon before finishing him off. While his death did show that Vox Machina ''could'' kill the dragons, he was also able to kill dozens of Herd members, and the difficulty of the fight means that they wouldn't attempt to take on another Conclave member until they had found more Vestiges and leveled up more]].

** Episode 7. [[spoiler: The team, still aided by Kima and Clarota, storm Emberhold's throne room. They manage to kill the duergar king and most of his troops, but are forced to escape when the queen floods the room with magma. On top of this, one of the mind flayers and the queen teleport away - and worse, the queen took a mind-controlled Grog with her, who was carrying their bag of holding. Oh, and Tiberius and Kima are currently petrified thanks to the king's basilisks.]]
** Episode 10 gives us the big reveal about K'varn -- he's [[spoiler: a Beholder, and he's been experimenting on himself in much the same way he'd been creating the monstrosities our heroes had been facing up to this point.]]
** In Episode 16, the party successfully seals away the Horn of Orcus, then learns that a new holy path has been revealed... [[spoiler: to a lost temple of Sarenrae, which Pike stays behind to help rebuild.]]
** The end of Episode 17. [[spoiler:As if having to say goodbye to Pike in the last episode wasn't enough, things get worse. When Vox Machina agrees to undergo a test to gain membership into the Slayer's Take to avoid being persecuted for the illegal slaying of a Hydra (which was already claimed by one of the guild's hunting parties), Huntmaster Vanessa Cyndrial decides to [[NeverSplitTheParty split the team into two separate groups to test how they fare with working with different people.]] This comes as a shock to the whole party, most notably Vax and Vex who had never been apart longer than a day since their birth. They try to ask the Huntmaster to reconsider, but she refuses. While Vex was able to mostly deal with the separation (or at least act like it), it's '''''Vax''''' who was the more broken of the two, as evidenced in Episode 20.]]

[[CriticalRole/CampaignTwoTheMightyNein "Let's do it again!"]]

An [[WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfVoxMachina animated adaptation]] has been made of this campaign.

* GlobalAirship: Percy [[InvokedTrope invoked]] this trope, wanting to steal a skyship so that the party could travel around Exandria while fighting the dragons of the Chroma Conclave. Besides Scanlan, none of the other members were on board with the idea, pointing out that the dragons could just knock the ship out of the sky.

[[TheyFightCrime Together, they fight monsters]], and are pretty damn funny doing it.

* InterestingSituationDuel: During Scanlan's solo mission to cause a distraction during the group's assault on the new nobles of Whitestone he has a brief but impressive confrontation with Count Vekmire: A [[DavidVsGoliath gnome fighting a goliath]] on the [[RooftopConfrontation roof]] of a [[BattleAmongsttheFlames burning building]] during a [[BattleintheRain thunderstorm]]!