Campaign Two: The Mighty Nein

Promotional photo of the Critical Role cast for the launch of Campaign 2

Jason Charles Miller, Sam Riegel, Laura Bailey, Ashley Johnson, Travis Willingham
**Break and outro music**:
Colm McGuinness

### **Hosted on**

Twitch
Youtube

### **Last aired**

2021-06-03

**Campaign Two** is the second campaign of *Critical Role*. It takes place beginning in Sydenstar, 835 P.D., approximately twenty years after the adventures of Vox Machina. The returning cast plays all-new characters and features the continent of Wildemount as its primary setting. In the eighth episode, the adventuring party adopted the name "The Mighty Nein".

## **Story arc summaries**

→ Main article: The Adventures of the Mighty Nein

## **Production**

Before the campaign began airing, most of the players participated in a session 0 with Matt so that they could get a feel for their characters and the setting they would be playing in.

The first part of the second campaign was live streamed on the Geek & Sundry Twitch channel and YouTube, on Thursdays at 7pm (Pacific Time). In February 2019, Critical Role parted ways with Geek & Sundry, launched their own Twitch and YouTube channels, and started to self-produce new shows and content under the name Critical Role Productions LLC. Eventually the live broadcasts of *Critical Role* and VODs aired exclusively on Critical Role's channels. Episodes are archived on the Critical Role website and the Critical Role and Geek & Sundry YouTube channels.

On 17 March 2020, Critical Role announced that it was suspending all live broadcasts of both the D&D stream *Critical Role* and Talks Machina due to the COVID-19 pandemic. *Critical Role* returned in a prerecorded format on 2 July 2020 with the broadcast of "Hunted at Sea" (2x100).

The second campaign started on January 11, 2018 with "Curious Beginnings" (2x01), and ended three and a half years and 141 episodes later on June 3rd, 2021 with "Fond Farewells" (2x141).

On January 25, 2023, Amazon Studios and Critical Role announced a forthcoming animated series to be based on the second campaign and the adventures of the Mighty Nein. Production was expected to begin "shortly". The announcement summarized the storyline as: "The Mighty Nein adventuring party — a band of criminals and misfits — are the only ones who can prevent the kingdom from plunging into chaos when an arcane artifact capable of reshaping reality falls into the wrong hands."

## **Trivia**

* For Campaign 2, ability scores were determined during character creation using the standard method described in the *Player's Handbook*: roll 4d6 and drop the lowest die. Matthew Mercer implemented a house rule that if sum of all ability scores for a player was less than 70, then that player had the option to reroll all scores. They could rearrange the scores as desired.
* Laura Bailey's character, Jester, previously appeared in two one-shot adventures. However, this was her first appearance in a Critical Role production.
* Several characters from The Campaign of Vox Machina have also appeared in Campaign Two, including Captain Adella, Allura Vysoren, Artagan, Kent Plucker, Keyleth, and Lady Kima of Vord. Additionally, the book *The Daring Trials and Tribulations of Sir Taryon Darrington* has also appeared.
* This campaign was the first to use an animated opening sequence.

## **References**

1. ↑ See "The Gates of Zadash" (2x08) at 1:29:07.  Matt states that the date is the 12th of Fessuran. In-game, the campaign started approximately a month earlier.
2. ↑ Matthew Mercer clarified via Twitter that the second campaign starts in 835 P.D.
3. ↑ See "The Gates of Zadash" (2x08) at 1:03:18.
4. ↑  Spangler, Todd (March 8, 2019). "Critical Role Team, After Record-Breaking Fan Crowdfunding Response, Vows to Make 'The Best Goddamn Cartoon Anyone Has Ever Seen'". *Variety*. Retrieved March 29, 2019.
5. ↑ The tweet announcing the hiatus and Critical Role's website post.
6. ↑ YouTube video of the announcement.
7. ↑ Todd Spangler, "Amazon Inks Critical Role to Overall TV and First-Look Film Deal, Greenlights ‘Mighty Nein’ Animated Series" on Variety.com January 25, 2023
8. ↑ Matthew Mercer explained the houserule for rolling stats during character creation (source 1 and source 2).

**Art:**