‘The Legend of Vox Machina’ Team Warns That Season 3 Will Bring The Angst

In Season 3 of The Legend of Vox Machina — premiering Thursday, October 3, on Prime Video — dragons and the potential end of Exandria as we know it aren’t the only things the adventuring party has to fight. Now bound by fate, trust and more than a few near-death scenarios, the group also has to grapple with the many emotional complexities that come with, well…being a family.

“I think it was really interesting that despite having to truncate this story, it weirdly gave some of our relationships breathing room, which I think is very odd,” admits Taliesin Jaffe, who plays gunslinger Percy. “But I like now that we have more of an opportunity as characters to talk about stuff, about what’s going on between us.”

“We get to show these intimate conversations we didn’t get to show throughout the game, because you didn’t want to take away from, you know, oh, we’re going and fighting this big thing,” says Laura Bailey, who plays half-elf ranger Vex’ahlia. “But now we actually get to take those moments and say what we wanted to say.”

As teased in the recently released trailer, relationships — notably the ones between Percy and Vex and half-elf druid Keyleth (Marisha Ray) and rogue Vax’ildan (Liam O’Brien) — will be front and center during this season, which picks up in the aftermath of the slaying of a remaining Chroma Conclave dragon and an uneasy alliance with another dragon named Raishan (Cree Summer). “It’s so beautiful to see, you know, relationships growing in the show and growing in different ways,” previews Bailey. “Because we’re seeing all different aspects of these characters coming together and then being forced apart at the same time.”

And while Season 1 centered on setting up characters and Season 2 built upon a larger narrative, Season 3 has the substantial task of balancing a large amount of storytelling with quieter personal moments that are imperative to each character’s evolution. With the voice actors who created this story at the helm of the adaptation as writers and executive producers, that was a challenge they welcomed.

“It’s really impressive to be able to show the scope of the worlds that we’re showing and still be able to get these intimate moments, these episodes,” says Bailey. Adds Ray, “Especially in later episodes of Vox Machina from the campaign, a lot of it was fetch quests and getting the vestiges and getting these things to fight the Chroma Conclave. There was a decent amount of precaution put into this season to make sure that it just didn’t come across as very repetitive and redundant. With getting powerful items and new abilities and leveling ourselves up, it’s kind of not too dissimilar to what I imagine a Dungeon Master has to deal with all the time as your characters get beefier, which is making sure that there are still very real stakes for the characters. So as Keyleth gets more and more powerful and hones her abilities, you still want to make sure that it is grounded and that there still feels like adequate challenges and stakes when it’s coming to this kind of scripted format.”

That goes for the budding relationship between Keyleth and Vax as well.

“I think we definitely want to honor the emotional beats and the fun and the trauma of Keyleth and Vax from the story,” says O’Brien. “But we have the benefit of hindsight and structure and pacing in a way that was much looser and, as you know, improvised at the table. So we’re just trying to give it the life and the heart that it had in our game, but also help use it to tell the bigger story.”

As the animated series gears up to debut its third season, it comes ahead of Critical Role celebrating 10 years since they started streaming live on Geek and Sundry. That provides a meaningful, if not coincidental, full circle for the cast, who get to hop back into the universe that they created so long ago and present it in a fresh way for fans new and old — and, as Bailey notes, “expand on it in a way that we were unable to during the actual game that we were playing. Like moments that you really wanted to dive into, we can now, and we can see it play out in beautiful ways.”

“We’re a very large stage now beamed out around the globe, but we are one group of actors who know each other’s idiosyncrasies and quirks and foibles and flaws and strengths,” says O’Brien. “I look at my my ability to hang with the improvisation that happens at our table and with the more structured storytelling in our writers room and know that I couldn’t really have done a lot of the things that I did this year 10 years ago. It’s been such a joy to both to see my own growth as an artist and a person over the last decade, but to see that in each of the other people.”

Seasoned viewers of the original Vox Machina campaign are already aware of what they might see this season as the Chroma Conclave arc draws to a close, but adaptations are, after all, adaptations. And that doesn’t mean there won’t be a few surprises throughout the 12 episodes. While Jaffe teases that fans should look forward to Percy’s “commitment to the bit,” Bailey is excited for people to “see the mask come off, see how deeply Vex feels about so much.”

Also, audiences should be prepared for angst and feelings. A lot of them.

“I think people are going to be happy with the scale and the depth of this season coming up and I think people are going to like how much we’re about to hurt them,” says O’Brien. “I mean that. And they might go, ‘Oh, no, how could you? How could you?’ But they’re gonna like it.”

The Legend of Vox Machina, Season 3 Premiere, Thursday, October 3, Prime Video