[5] Episode 36 features a summary of the pre-series history,[6] with artwork created by Wendy Sullivan Green and voice-overs provided by the cast.
[9][10] Campaign one originally broadcast live on the Geek & Sundry Twitch and YouTube channels between March 12, 2015, and October 12, 2017, for a total of 115 episodes.
The Mighty Nein campaign is set about 20 years after Vox Machina's final battle against Vecna;[16][17] it takes place at a time where tensions are very high between the Dwendalian Empire and the Kryn Dynasty, two of Wildemount's major powers.
SyFy Wire highlighted that Marquet is "home to massive deserts, mountains, and even a volcano" and that it is "uncharted territory for the series".
[32][33] The season's game master is Aabria Iyengar (known for other streaming shows such as Happy Jacks RPG, Dimension 20, and Saving Throw).
[43][44] In addition to their main campaign series, Critical Role has also broadcast many one-shots – short adventures that take place within a single session of play.
[48][51] Academics Lisa Horton and David Beard, in the book The Routledge Handbook of Remix Studies and Digital Humanities, explained that Critical Role's one-shots "use pastiche, parody, and other forms of obvious remix", highlighting that Critical Role has "mashed-up Harry Potter with The Breakfast Club and Peter Pan with the Wizard of Oz, and the results are entertaining, but they live and die within a single evening".
[49][48] Set during the final episode of the series, Vox Machina head to Pandemonium to recover Grog's soul after his use of the Deck of Many Things.
The Mighty Nein must regroup after the events of the Apogee Solstice[b] in 843 PD and deal with emerging dangers as magical chaos unfolds.
A group of misfits find themselves swept up in a bar room brawl in a tavern on the outskirts of Jorenn Village near the Umbra Hills.
Five warriors are pulled from different points of Exandria’s timeline to fight on Garyon Garrington’s Plunder Games – an alternate reality TV show.
Various guests will reprise their characters in this Battle Royale-style player versus player game: Darin De Paul as Sprigg, Will Friedle as Kashaw Vesh, and ND Stevenson as Tova from Campaign One, Sumalee Montano as Nila from Campaign Two, and Anjali Bhimani as Fy’ra Rai from Exandria Unlimited.
A Red Nose Day one-shot where Mercer runs a D&D adventure for Tony Hale and Sam Richardson who are joined by several Critical Role cast members.
A live non-canon one-shot featuring the Bells Hells who are pulled from Exandria by two Elemental Royals to undergo a series of challenges.
The cast will play as main Critical Role campaign characters in interconnected one-shots facing a common threat, starting in Sydney, Australia.
The cast will play as main Critical Role campaign characters in interconnected one-shots facing a common threat, finishing in Melbourne, Australia.
[80] These are one-shots which feature the Daggerheart system published by Darrington Press, the tabletop game imprint for Critical Role Productions.
[103][104][105] Cheryl Teh of Business Insider noted that the Critical Role cast "appears to be embracing, once again, the funhouse chaos of its early-day Twitch streams" by returning to the livestream format for the Daggerheart episodes.
[104] Tara McCauley of The Escapist described the three episodes featuring The Menagerie adventuring party as a "one-shot-turned-short-campaign" which allowed Critical Role to "demonstrate Daggerheart and its open beta evolution with their signature actual play antics".
The party investigate nearby mines which were closed by the local baron on behalf of the Kroatona family and eliminate a source of corruption there.