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The Underdark

K'varn the Mad

Race: Beholder

So, guest, how do you like my home? You're welcome anytime.

A mutated beholder who has been working in the Underdark, deep under Kraghammer. Intending to attack the surface, K'varn commands the illithid and the duergar to attack Kraghammer, capturing as many dwarves as possible for experimentation.

Anti-Magic: As with all beholders, K'varn nullify all magic of with just a glare from his central eye. This factor is why Tiberius refuses to fight him.
Arc Villain: He's behind everything - the illithid, the duergar plot, and the capture of Kima, making him the Big Bad of the story's first arc as well.
Artifact of Doom: His horn is eventually explained to be from an evil god of undeath, and it's the quest of Lady Kima to destroy it.
Back from the Dead: When K'varn was killed, the black horn gave it the ability of Undeath. Then when it was killed a second time, it came back to life. It wasn't until Tiberius ripped the horn off K'varn's corpse that the battle finally ended.
Berserk Button: Grog tried to rip the horn off his head. This so enraged him that he focused exclusively on Grog until he killed Grog. When Pike revived him, he resumed his barrage.
Boss Battle: K'Varn is the first monster who manages to battle Vox Machina alone and holds his own against the party for half of a five-hour stream. It is actually the fourth longest fight against a single, unaided opponent, only surpassed by Umbrasyl, Raishan and the Final Boss of the stream.
Clingy Macguffin: The Horn of Orcus, which Lady Kima states is the root cause of the mess in the Kraighammer arc, is so firmly attached to him that Grog can't pull it off, Vex can't shoot it off and Tiberius can't yank it off with telekinesis. They have to weaken the connection by killing him twice before Tiberius can succeed.
Clipped-Wing Angel: He revives as an undead after being killed by the party, but this form has far less health than his first and he doesn't accomplish much before dying again.
Combo Platter Powers: Beholders have powers ranging from mind control to petrification thanks to their twelve magical eye-stalks and the horn of Orcus grants him some control over the undead on top of that.
The Dragon: Kima reveals in episode 8 that he is apparently a lieutenant of the demon prince and lord of undead Orcus. While he didn't directly give K'varn the black horn that identifies him, he still seems to have been content to let the beholder use it.
The Dreaded: Vox Machina is very apprehensive of him and spend almost as much time planning on fighting him as they do fighting him. Tiberius in particular is terrified of him, refusing to fight him and going off on his own during the fight to rally the illithid instead.
Eldritch Abomination: What little we know of him points toward this, given that he supposedly came through a dimensional tear and his great power can destroy bodies, crush minds and steal souls. Episode 10 reveals that he's a Beholder. And worse, he's been experimenting on himself much like the aberrations the team had been fighting.
Faux Affably Evil: When he speaks to Vox Machina before their in-person meeting, he takes on a casual, welcoming tone. This doesn't change that he's a sadistic monster who's performed horrible experimentation on creatures and sapient beings, or that he's enslaved an entire people.
The Ghost: He doesn't appear until episode 9, where he speaks to the team, and then in episode 10 where we learn what he looks like.
Hero Killer: He kills Grog during the fight in retribution for Grog trying to tear the Horn of Orcus off of him. Fortunately Grog is immediately revived by Pike. Though the incident is glossed over, it is the first player character death on-stream.
Killed Off for Real: Well, if getting put down once by Vex wasn't enough, he then got turned into an undead and was slain again by Tiberius. Ripping off his horn, the source of his powers and resurrection, took him out for good.
Knight of Cerebus: While the Underdark arc is already rather dark in tone, K'Varn's creatures bring an aspect of horror to it, and he himself is clearly The Dreaded to Vox Machina.
Mad Scientist: Is the progenitor of the "stitch monsters" the party fights throughout the Underdark, and seems to enjoy making the process as painful as possible, for example: the Abyssal Abomination fought in Episode 8 did not have tentacles replacing its arms, K'Varn pushed its arms into its body and stitched the tentacles onto the stumps.
Marathon Boss: Vox Machina's battle against K'Varn lasts for 45 turns and about two real world hours. Only Umbrasyl and Raishan have him beat for longest solo boss fight (the Final Boss technically had a continuous stream of minions).
Red Right Hand: His black and twisted horn is used to identify him before the in-person meeting.
Sequential Boss: His horn revives him as an undead after the party kills him, forcing them to fight him again. The second time he goes down, Tiberius rips the horn off to ensure it won't happen again.

King Murghol

Race: Duergar

Class: Warrior

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/murghol.png

King of the duergar stronghold of Emberhold and behind the plot to invade the surface.

Authority Equals Asskicking: Unsurprisingly, the king is quite powerful. This is a dwarf who got part of his face shot off and only acted like it was an annoyance.
Beard of Evil: Has a long black braided beard that goes almost all the way down to the floor. A kingly looking beard, for a black-hearted king.
The Dragon: Although he is the king of the duergar, Lady Kima says that his wife was the real ruler here, and the real threat. He is present as the physical threat to her magical one.
Even Evil Has Loved Ones: What little we've seen suggests that he and Ulara loved each other.
Facial Horror: Two of Percy's bullets take off one side of his jaw and expose part of his skull, which leaves him very close to death.
A Father to His Men: He is implied to at least care for his soldiers when attempting to convince them that the being riding a giant scorpion in front of them is not their god Laduguer in physical form but an imposter (Tiberius) trying to trick them.
Murghol: Men, I've trained you. I've raised you. I've fed you and I've kept you alive.
Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: He wields a huge sword, and his queen has magical powers.
Off with His Head!: Scanlan lops his head off his with his magical singing sword. He had to cut the guy's Achilles Tendon first in order to bring him down into gnome range.
Tin Tyrant: Wears dark black plate armor, which makes him look fearsome and threatening.

Queen Ulara

Race: Duergar

Class: Sorcerer

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ulara.png

The duergar queen, and Murghol's wife. A powerful mage with a cunning mind.

Authority Equals Asskicking: Like her husband, she is rather capable in combat through arcane spells.
Charm Person: Included amongst her spells is Dominate Person, which she successfully utilizes on Grog during the fight in the throne room.
Dead Guy Puppet: In episode 9, Queen Ulara is close to death due to injuries with the party. K'varn possess her to taunt and intimidate Vox Machina right before K'varn kills her.
Even Evil Has Loved Ones: What little we've seen suggests that she and Murghol loved each other. She even says that kidnapping Grog was a Revenge by Proxy; "you take something I love, I take something you love.
Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: She does magic, Murghol does melee.
Satellite Character: For Murghol, as she's just there to be the queen to his king. Subverted when she outlasts him and kidnaps Grog.
Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Although she regrets leaving Murghol behind, she cuts her losses and teleports out so their plans can continue another day. Unfortunately for the then-brainwashed Grog, she decides to take him along with her.
Shock and Awe: Can utilize Chain Lightning.

"Tiny"

Race: Fomorian

A fomorian encountered by the team at the end of Episode 10 and very temporarily brought over to their side during the events of Episode 11.

Character Death: He dies when he is dropped on the roof of K'varn's Lair in order to break through. The falling damage killed him.
Evil Is Bigger: So huge that even Grog barely came up to his waist.
Evil Smells Bad: So bad, in fact, that a failed constitution save on Vax's part caused him to throw up.
Forced Transformation: Transformed into a mouse as part of the group's plan to break into the illithid temple.
Gonk: A fomorian trademark is exaggerated ugliness.
Heel–Face Brainwashing: Keyleth uses a geas to bind Tiny to her will, an effect that lasts up to thirty days. They didn't need all that time.
Only Known by Their Nickname: Since he never disclosed his name to Vox Machina, he is only known by the nickname given to him.
We Hardly Knew Ye: He appeared as a cliffhanger, was defeated and controlled in the next episode with little dialogue, and died when dropped from a great height.

Slayer's Take Quarry

Rimefang

Race: White Dragon

I have not lived these hundred years or so to become the hunted. I am the hunter!

An adult white dragon who Percy, Vex, Grog, and Scanlan - along with new allies Lyra and Zahra - are tasked with hunting by the Slayer's Take.

Alliterative List: Refers to Vox Machina and the giants as "insolent, insufferable insects."
Arc Villain: Shares this with Hotis. He's the vicious dragon that one half of Vox Machina has to kill in order to gain entry into the Slayers' Take during the Vasselheim Arc.
Bomb Disposal: Sort of - Percy's bomb was detonated when Rimefang made a strike with his tail and smashed it.
Collapsing Lair: Soon after he's slain, his icy lair begins to melt. Of course, this is justified since his draconic powers were keeping it frozen, and without Rimefang around to sustain them...
Color-Coded for Your Convenience: As per D&D lore, white dragons are inherently evil - as are all chromatic dragons - and have ice powers.
The Dreaded: To the Frost Giants, and for very good reason. Chances are the Slayer's Take feared him as well, considering they tried sending teams to kill him and all failed until Vox Machina stepped up to the plate.
An Ice Person: White Dragons are attuned to ice by nature as Red Dragons are to fire, Blue to lightning, Green to poison and Black to necrosis.
It's All About Me: Slew an entire colony of frost giants, leaving just two to serve and worship him. The party finds a statue built to Rimefang, apparently to appease him, and Lyra's magical glimpse into his mindset reveals that "he likes to be worshipped". They initially get close to him by pretending to bring him an offering.
No-Sell: His Legendary Resistance, which can potentially make any failed saving throw of his a success instead. This can apply to potential ailments and/or damage against magic. Unfortunately for him, he can only use it three times a day.
This Cannot Be!: His reaction to Zahra finally bringing him down with her Hellish Rebuke.
Rimefang: No... No, you can't...
Zahra: Yes, I FUCKING can.

Hotis

Race: Rakshasa

You can try and kill me, and you may very well destroy me, but I'll be back.

A rakshasa (a humanoid tiger-like fiend and shapeshifter) that Vax, Keyleth and Tiberius, along with new allies Thorbir and Kashaw, are tasked with killing. Unlike Rimefang, whose threat is obvious from his sheer power alone, the rakshasa depends on subterfuge and wearing the enemy down slowly before taking them on in combat. Also, kind of a dick.

Arc Villain:
- Shares this with Rimefang. He's the scheming tiger demon that one half of Vox Machina has to kill in order to gain entry into the Slayers' Take during the Vasselheim Arc.
- Despite still being in a near-fetal stage of reforming for the arc, Vox Machina's hunt for him is also the driving force behind the Nine Hells Arc.
Arch-Enemy: He despises all of Vox Machina, but nurses a special hatred for Vax'ildan because Vax was the one who killed him the first time. He later extended this hatred to Pike after she killed him the second time.
Came Back Strong: A minor case, but he has more hit points when he returns than in his initial appearance during the Trial of the Take.
Deal with the Devil: Offers this to the team. They refuse. With prejudice.
Flunky Boss:
- Controls a metal construct during the battle that absorbs part of the damage he takes. Fortunately, once he dies, it goes down with him.
- When he returns, he brings hired members of the Clasp's sect in Stillben to assassinate Vox Machina while he personally deals with Vax. Fortunately, they were all dealt with and Hotis was eventually killed once again.
Honey Trap: Posing as Gilmore in Whitestone, he uses Vax's attraction and affection to lure him completely unarmed and unarmored away from the rooms where the rest of the party was sleeping and might have quickly come to his aid. Then he got them alone, got up close and personal, and stabbed him in the gut with a poisoned dagger.
Killed Off for Real: Being a fiend from the Nine Hells, he can only be properly killed on his home plane of existence. Because of this, the party decides to go and kill him in the Nine Hells before he can make another attempt on their lives. After a great deal of effort and bargaining to gain access to his prison in the Bastion of Flesh, they finally put an end to him by destroying his still regenerating form.
Laser-Guided Karma: He threatened to kill the team's loved ones (Vex, House Stormwind, Keyleth's father, and Thorbir's daughter) only to suffer a very brutal death at the hands of a very pissed-off Vax'ildan.
No-Sell: As a Rakshasa, he is immune to nonmagical weapons and magic attacks under level 7. However, he is weak to magical piercing weapons used by good-aligned characters, such as Keyleth's bite attack in her Minxy form (due to her status as a Circle of the Moon druid) and Vax's daggers. As for other spells, he can be affected by the likes of Silence and Counterspell.
Recurring Boss: After being killed by Vox Machina early in the campaign, Hotis reappears to seek out his vengeance against Vax'ildan in particular as he was the one who got the killing blow against him.
The Reveal: Was formerly appearing as a dwarf and the manager of the Velvet Cabaret. In Episode 57, he gets the drop on Vax while disguised as Gilmore, and he is not happy.
Resurrective Immortality: Rakshasa possess this ability unless they are slain in the Nine Hells from which they spawned, in which case they're dead for good. In the case of Rakshasas, the process of reforming is especially agonizing and it can take them weeks or even months before they fully reform, during which they are left with the thought of the person who killed them first and foremost in their mind. He claims he'll be back and lo and behold, he does to shank Vax in the night.
Serial Killer: Part of how the party tracks him is by tracing him as the perpetrator of several gruesome murders.
Smug Snake: Oh, he is all kinds of smug. Until Tiberius Counterspells his escape, and then he gets scared.
Squashed Flat: A rare non-comedic example when Vox Machina finally tracks him down respawning in the Nine Hells. He's in a defenseless fetus-like form, and Grog literally crushes him to a pulp with the dwarven throwing hammer.
Too Dumb to Live: Reads the party's minds to learn of their loved ones, then takes time to make a threat against them and telegraph his escape attempt - all this while he's at extremely low health. This gives Tiberius time to anticipate his escape and counter it, and gets Vax pissed off enough to chase him down hard.
Villains Act, Heroes React: Averted. When Hotis respawns and attacks Vox Machina a second time, they don't give him a chance for a third combat. They travel to the Nine Hells while he's respawning and permanently kill him.
Villain: Exit, Stage Left: Attempts a plane shift near the end of his first boss battle. Keyword is attempt - an enraged Tiberius easily counters his spell.
Voluntary Shapeshifting: Rakshasa are capable of taking on the form of just about any mortal race. It's said that some might never reveal their true faces. Thus, the party's first course of action is to find who in Vasselheim he is pretending to be.
We Will Meet Again: Hotis doesn't forget a grudge.
- In his first encounter with Vox Machina, he hisses "I will find you" just before Vax shuts him up by slitting his throat. He does, and shanks Vax much later in the campaign.
- In his second encounter with Vox Machina, he declares "I will return" as Pike's Flame Strike incinerates him. After this, the party decides to take the battle to him, reversing this trope.

Whitestone

Lord and Lady Briarwood

Lord Sylas and Lady Delilah Briarwood

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/briarwoods.png

Sylas Briarwood

Race: Human Vampire
Class: Warrior
Voiced by: Matthew Mercer

Delilah Briarwood

Race: Human
Class: Wizard (School of Necromancy)
Voiced by: Grey DeLisle

Lord Sylas and Lady Delilah Briarwood are a mysterious couple from Percy's past, best known to him for slaughtering his entire family. As it turns out, the Briarwoods used this massacre to take command of Whitestone (the de Rolo family ancestral home) and seem to have made some powerful connections in Emon.

Tropes that apply to both

Arch-Enemy: They are undeniably Percy's, having inflicted the wound that has driven him forward for years.
Arc Villain: Of the Whitestone Arc. It's their massacre against Percy's family and the evil ritual they begin beneath Whitestone castle that drives Vox Machina to liberate the city from them and their collaborators.
Back from the Dead: Delilah reappears beneath the mountains of Ank'harel in episode 100, leading—and completing—the same ritual she attempted in Whitestone... And again in episode 106, after being killed in the battle at Entropis in episode 102. Episode 112 reveals that Sylas has returned to "life" as well.
Bait-and-Switch: Given the evidence in Episode 24 and 25, it seemed obvious that the Briarwoods are both vampires... and then Matt mentioned on Twitter that he never said that of Lady Delilah. Going back to Episode 25, only Sylas was ever shown to have fangs, regeneration, or any other vampiric traits, while Delilah has resistances and spells that are uncommon for vampires. She's human. Which makes one wonder: why is her husband a vampire? The answer is actually key to their entire story.
Beauty Is Bad: The DM emphasizes that both Briarwoods are incredibly attractive and glamorously dressed.
Big Bad Duumvirate: Of the Whitestone Arc and possibly the campaign as a whole, with Delilah's return in episode 100 and Sylas's return in episode 112
Big "NO!":
- Delilah, when Sylas is disintegrated by Keyleth and again when Imogen splits the tree holding Laudna's soul hostage.
- Sylas in episode 113 when Delilah is killed by Vex.
Consummate Liar: The Briarwoods are incredibly adept at concealing their true intentions. Even when the party knows they are lying about their 'inheritance' of Castle Whitestone and continuously roll impressively high insight checks, they can only tell that Sylas and Delilah 'seem nice'. Given that Sylas is a vampire and Delilah is an extremely powerful spellcaster, their incredible charm is only natural. It also turns out that Sylas had a magic amulet that obfuscated his undead nature and true intentions.
Deal with the Devil: Their motivation, as revealed in Episode 35. At some point in the past, Delilah made a deal with Vecna, an incredibly powerful lich, to bring Sylas back to life. Conducting the ritual under Whitestone was the price for resurrection.
Even Evil Has Loved Ones: They both genuinely care for the other, and are heartbroken when the other dies at different points in the story.
Evil Counterpart: Not obvious at first, but as Percy and Vex's relationship progresses, the Briarwoods begin to feel like a dark mirror of them. Best shown when Sylas attacks the pair on their wedding day. Percy and Vex are essentially what Sylas and Delilah could have been under happier circumstances, had they not turned to villainy.
Evil Versus Evil: The Briarwoods have made quite a few enemies and not all of them are good, in some cases leading Vox Machina to forge some unconventional alliances to defeat them. They originally fled the shadowy, authoritarian Dwendelian Empire under threat of execution for their necromancy, and in the final arc Arkhan the Cruel vows to destroy them for Delilah's role in slaughtering his party, and their status as followers of Vecna makes them a target of the Sword of Kas.
Faux Affably Evil: They maintain their congenial mannerisms even as they paralyze Vax and move in for the kill. Two campaigns later, Laudna recalls how they invited her family and others for a classy dinner - which, by her account, was actually as nice as they advertised - only to then capture and torture everyone before hanging them from the Sun Tree.
Fisher Kingdom: Whitestone under the Briarwoods is a very creepy place, with unnatural green fog, constant cloud-cover and frequent rain, dying plants and other horror movie staples. Going off the 5th edition Monster Manual, this is entirely keeping in canon, but Matt offered an explanation anyway: the green fog is a by-product of the acid they've been using to excavate beneath Whitestone, and given the large number of undead it would be practical to keep the sun shrouded.
Hope Spot: One in their backstory triggered their descent into villainy. When Sylas began to succumb to a mysterious disease, Delilah set out to find a cure—and actually succeeded. But he'd died by the time she returned, causing her to turn to much darker methods to bring him back.
Killed to Uphold the Masquerade: They try to assassinate their carriage driver, Desmond because he knows too much about their activities at Whitestone. Vox Machina foils the attempt. Barely.
Killed Off for Real:
- Delilah: Her final back-up body was killed by Vex, making her death in episode 113 her final one. However, Campaign 3 showed that this was ultimately a subversion, as her spirit survived. Part of the campaign revolves around making sure that she doesn't come back through Laudna, who uses Delilah as her warlock patron.
- Sylas: He joins his wife in death after Vex gets the killing blow on him in the Dalen's Closet oneshot. As nobody is around who cares enough for him to resurrect him again, he likely isn’t coming back.
Knight of Cerebus: Anytime they get involved, expect the story to get darker. Killing Percy's family, hanging seven civilians (and a bear) dressed as Vox Machina as effigies, oppressing an entire town, nearly killing several members of Vox Machina and conducting a mysterious ritual to an evil only spoken of in whispers. The previously mentioned hangings at the Sun Tree is generally regarded as a turning point for the show as a whole, revealing how dark it was willing to go.
Know When to Fold 'Em: Once the whole of Vox Machina corners them and begins to turn the tables, they wisely decide to retreat.
Make an Example of Them: They kill seven civilians and a bear, dress them up like Vox Machina, and hang them in a public square in Whitestone from the branches of a once-holy tree. The message there is... pretty clear.
Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Who could possibly have anticipated that a pair named Sylas and Delilah Briarwood would turn out to be evil?
Necromantic: Absolutely - they are clearly deeply in love, and the entire reason they went to Whitestone to begin with was that it was the price of Delilah resurrecting Sylas as a vampire.
One-Hit Kill: Delilah's Finger of Death spell instantly kills any target it reduces to 0 HP, bypassing death saving throws entirely. And causes them to rise as a zombie under her control next turn. Vex just barely avoids this fate on three separate occasions. It's also implied that anyone reduced to 0 HP by one of Sylas' bite attacks instantly dies and becomes a vampire.
Pragmatic Villainy: Sylas and Delilah do their level best to contain the situation after Vax sneaks into their room, preferring to keep a low profile and gain a new asset through charm rather than indulging in reckless sadism. At first. They also teleport out of Emon when they start losing to Vox Machina.
Recurring Boss: Vox Machina fights the couple twice in the Briarwood arc. Much later, Delilah fights them without her husband twice before the couple reunite for a rematch. Delilah also recurs as an encounter in campaign 3, although significantly reduced in power as a shade.
Rule of Three: They each die three times before they're taken out for good.
- Sylas died of an illness several years before the start of the campaign before being resurrected as a vampire, was incinerated by Keyleth and Pike's Sunbeam spell, then finally burned to death by Vex's Blessing of the Dawnfather after he tried to kill her during her wedding rehearsal.
- Delilah died when she was run through with a rapier by Cassandra, had her eye shot out by Percy, and was shot in the head by Vex. Though Campaign Three suggests she might be dead but not necessarily gone...
Sequel Hook: After the final boss battle, one of the party's spellcasters casts a spell to definitively learn the ultimate fate of one of the Briarwoods. They see Sylas escaping into the forest as a bat. In one of the post-campaign one-shots, we find out where he flew off to.
Smug Snake: The pair of them - Sylas most noticeably - act as though their first confrontation with Vox Machina is a terribly amusing game while the party is hurling spells, daggers, arrows, bullets, and flaming greataxes. Even as they're fleeing, Delilah pauses to enrage Percy one more time, just for fun.
Sword and Sorcerer: The Briarwoods are an evil Battle Couple version of this, with Sylas as the sword and Delilah (as mentioned above) being the necromancy-specializing arcane spellcaster.
Unholy Matrimony: By all appearances, Sylas and Delilah are a devoted, loving, affectionate couple whose idea of a date night includes mass murder. Sylas even takes a spell-hit for Delilah without a second's hesitation, and Delilah soothes Sylas when rage starts clouding his judgement. (It's played mildly for laughs when Scanlan tries to Suggest Delilah make out with her husband during combat; she makes the saving throw and abstains, but Matt's description implies she simply postponed the thought.) One NPC says explicitly that they're far more dangerous partnered than they ever would be alone. Given how Delilah's anguish upon seeing Sylas being injured, it's clear that despite being irredeemably evil, they care for each other very much.
Villain Forgot to Level Grind: For their first two appearences the Briarwoods present a solid enough challenge for Vox Machina to be careful when facing them, by the time Delilah returns, despite her having new spells and an upgrade in the form of the Eye of Vecna, she herself is overall weaker than Vox machina and only becomes a threat as support for Vecna. During their final confrontation in Campaign 1, having lost the Eye of Vecna, Delilah and a resurrected Sylas find themselves way outmatched by Vox machina, who manage to take them without much effort, kill Delilah and force Sylas to run away
Villain with Good Publicity: The Briarwoods are friendly with Sovereign Uriel Tal'Dorei and have the entire nation fooled (except for Vox Machina) that their 'inheritance' of Whitestone was legitimate after the de Rolo family perished as a result of disease.
Would Hurt a Child: One of the civilians hanging from the tree, representing Scanlan, was a child. Also, given Cassandra's age and the number of siblings between her and Percy, it's likely that at least one or two of the de Rolos they killed was just a teenager.
You Killed My Father: They killed Percy's father, and his mother, and five of his siblings, possibly the sixth as well. Along with everyone else he knew...

Tropes that apply to Delilah

Alas, Poor Villain: Despite how horrible she is, Critters and players like felt bad for Delilah when Sylas was killed, thanks to Matt's heartwrenching portrayal of her grief.
An Arm and a Leg: Rather than kill her immediately, Percy blows Delilah's arm off.
The Archmage: The Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting Reborn sourcebook specifically mentions that Delilah is a former member of the Cerberus Assembly of the Dwendallian Empire in Wildemount. Given that there are only ever eight members of the Assembly at any given time (one for each of the schools of arcane magic), she was easily one of the most accomplished necromancers of her time.
Body Back Up Drive: Delilah had one of these courtesy of the clone spell. Which is how she came back after having her original body melted in acid.
Death Ray: Delilah's Finger of Death spell. It's basically her Signature Move, though she only ever uses it on Vex.
Evil Redhead: Delilah is described as having 'dark auburn' hair.
Evil Versus Oblivion: In Campaign 3 episode 77 Delilah clarifies that she wants to stop Predathos and rescue the gods just as much as anyone else because she is a servant of Vecna and if he is consumed she, and by extension Laudna, will vanish too.
Ex-Big Bad: Delilah survives as Laudna's patron in Campaign 3. After Laudna's death, she intends to use Laudna's body to return to life. This makes Delilah an Outside-Context Problem in regards to the conflict with Ruidus, the fey, and the Nightmare King that Bell's Hells have to deal with already.
Eye Scream: Percy shoots out one of Delilah's eyes in episode 102.
Gaslighting: Delilah spends a good portion of the beginning of campaign 3 trying to convince Laudna that her friends don't really care about her and that Delilah is the only person who has Laudna's best interests at heart.
Hot Witch: Little is known about the Briarwoods, but Delilah apparently studied magic in Emon, and she is described as very beautiful.
Karmic Death: All three of Delilah's deaths are at the hands of a member of the de Rolo family: first Cassandra, then Percy, and finally Vex.
Lady of Black Magic: Delilah is a very high level necromancer and maintains an aristocratic air even while casting Finger of Death.
Laser-Guided Karma: Delilah is a powerful necromancer known to raise her victims as zombies under her control. After her last death, Arkhan the Cruel raises her corpse as a zombie and sends it shambling into battle as a meat shield, and later tosses down her decapitated head when confronting Vecna.
Love Makes You Evil: It is unknown whether Delilah was a necromancer before Sylas died, but she definitely dived further into the dark arts in a hopes of bringing him back to life. She succeeded, but to do so, she turned him into a vicious vampire who she loved no less. Per the campaign wrap-up, Delilah and Sylas were relatively unimportant nobles in Wildemount living fairly normal lives, with Delilah working at a magical academy, before Sylas fell ill and died. This drove Delilah to unwittingly strike a deal and begin working with Vecna. Following his whispers is what dragged them into necromancy. Given the campaign 2 reveal that the academy Delilah taught at was none other than the Soltryce Academy, a well-known stomping ground of the Cerberus Assembly and a place where no small amount of atrocities have been committed, it's even less clear where and when her dark magical proclivities started. Regardless, this exchange from campaign 3 episode 78 suggests her willingness to go to extreme lengths stems from her twisted view of love.
Laudna: Is love anything more than pain?
Delilah: Sometimes. And it's worth it. It's worth everything.
Meaningful Name: Delilah's last name takes on additional meaning when Bell's Hells confront her in Laudna's mindscape and she fights them by controlling a twisted representation of the Sun Tree.
Necromancer: Delilah is a very high level wizard who specializes in curses and death spells. Her most notable spell is even the potentially One-Hit Kill zombie-turning Finger of Death.
Rasputinian Death: Two of them. Percy shoots off Delilah's arm in Episode 34 instead of killing her. Then, in Episode 35, Grog knocks her out with a punch, Vax knifes her in the back, Cassandra impales her on a rapier, and then the group dissolves her body in acid to ensure she won't somehow become an undead. And it apparently wasn't enough, seeing how she comes back for the 100th episode. When she's brought back a second time she's shot with arrows by Vex, nearly slashed to ribbons by Grog, and finally gets her eye shot out by Percy. And she still comes back after that.
Relative Button: In Episode 25, Delilah teases Percy by telling him to come visit his many dead brothers and sisters.
Delilah: At the very least, I think you should come visit us sometime, Percy. Be nice of you to visit your family once in a while.
Spanner in the Works: Delilah has to contend with several in Campaign 3. Her plan revolves around manipulating Laudna into gathering power so that she can eventually take her over as a vessel. Unfortunately for Delilah, just as Laudna is starting to believe her Gaslighting she gets killed by a threat that Delilah could not have possibly predicted. This forces Delilah to move up her timetable on possessing Laudna, only for Fresh Cut Grass to inadvertently block off this path by casting Gentle Repose to preserve her body. She attempts to supersede Laudna during the resurrection, but unfortunately for Delilah the cleric conducting the resurrection is Pike, who immediately recognizes her soul and puts an end to the ritual. Her final gambit is trying to convince Bell's Hells that she has Laudna's best interests at heart and there is no way to separate their souls without harming Laudna. Chetney sees through this deception and Imogen confirms it by speaking with Laudna's soul, forcing Delilah to fight Bell's Hells before they release Laudna.
Stupidity-Inducing Attack: Lady Briarwood casts Feeble Mind on Tiberius and brought his Intelligence and Charisma down to 1, which effectively evaporated his spellcasting. As well as his higher reasoning and his powers of speech, in fact. He could only think and act instinctively; in the DM's words, he was in all respects an unusually large lizard. She does it again when she comes back in episode 100, this time to Pike specifically to disable her as she was the party's healer, and one of the two who vaporized Sylas the last time around.
Took a Level in Badass: Delilah has been learning new tricks between her death and her encounter with Vox Machina in Ank'horel—she can now use ninth level spells, an ability she puts to good use with her horribly effective Prismatic Wall and Feeblemind spells during their battle.
Villain Decay: By the time of campaign 3 Delilah has become a shade tied to Laudna's soul and has lost a significant amount of her power. She can still exert enough influence to act as Laudna's warlock patron and briefly take control of her body but she is no longer the threat she represented near the end of campaign 1. When the other members of Bell's Hells confront her to free Laudna's soul she presents a confident front until they start to gain the upper hand, at which point she visibly loses composure as her plans unravel.

Tropes that apply to Sylas

BFS: Sylas wields a magical two-handed greatsword made of some weird black metal that drains strength from those it strikes. Percy snags it and finds out that it whispers to its wielder in a sinister voice... and gives it to Grog. The sword is less than thrilled, particularly when he tries to name it "Bacon".
Bond Villain Stupidity: Sylas shows shades of this when he has Percy and Vex at his mercy. Instead of simply executing them, he monologues and tosses them off a cliff into the water below with their limbs bound in chains, without taking their items from them, including Percy's boots of spider climbing. While this actually does kill Vex, Percy survives and calls for help, allowing Vox Machina to find them and restore Vex to life in under a minute. All the while, Sylas stays atop the cliff to watch them drown, allowing him to be caught, by the party, quickly overpowered and subsequently killed.
Charm Person: Sylas, a powerful and beautiful vampire, naturally has the power to compel others to do his bidding.
Crusading Widower: Sylas attacks Percy and Vex's wedding rehearsal dinner for a chance at revenge against the two of them for Delilah's death.
Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: Possibly related to his vampirism.
Even Evil Has Standards: When Lord Briarwood found out that Tylieri beat his servants, he had Tylieri hanged as punishment, though it seemed that Tylieri's actions didn't sicken Lord Briarwood enough to not have him revived as a vampire.
Post-Final Boss: By attacking Vex and Percy's wedding, Sylas serves as the final enemy for the Vox Machina campaign as a whole. At their level of power, he poses no threat once the entire party arrives to face him
Satellite Character: Sylas gets relatively little focus separate from Delilah.
Slasher Smile: Sylas is noted several times as grinning during battle. Being a vampire, toothy smiles probably come naturally to him.
Vampires Are Sex Gods: Before Sylas took a literal bite out of Vax, their language was sexualized just enough for the party (and Vax himself) to make threesome jokes.

Doctor Ripley

Doctor Anna Ripley

Race: Human
Class: Fighter (Gunslinger) / Wizard
Voiced by: Kelly Hu

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/anna_ripley.jpg

"Another name... off the list..."

A scientist closely associated with the Briarwoods, and part of the cabal of individuals that took over Whitestone and wiped out most of the de Rolo family. She tortured Percy for information about the castle before his escape and holds a place on his List. As Percy and the rest of Vox Machina discover, she has been working with the Briarwoods to create acidic compounds for their project in Whitestone. Unbeknownst to the Briarwoods, she has her own project - one closely associated with Percy himself...

Affably Evil: Much like her employers the Briarwoods, she presents herself with a friendly façade. Hers, however, appears to be genuine rather than the Briarwoods who seem more on the Faux Affably Evil end of the scale. (It's a matter of degree, though. She did ruthlessly torture Percy and she proves completely untrustworthy.)
An Arm and a Leg:
- Ripley blew her right hand off in one of her several attempts to replicate Percy's gun.
- Taken to a further extreme later on, when Vax severs her entire right arm as his contribution to the group's kill.
Arc Villain: Of the Ank’harel arc.
Aristocrats Are Evil: Became Countess Anna Ripley when the Briarwoods took over Whitestone.
Crazy-Prepared: She enchanted the pistol she made to be able to eavesdrop on the events going on around it. When Percy took it from her this allowed her to learn about everything regarding the plans Vox Machina had in dealing with the Chroma Conclave and finding the Vestiges of Divergence.
Cruel and Unusual Death: All of Vox Machina except Percy (who was dead at the time) gets in on her death. First, Vax severs her entire right arm. Second, Scanlan grabs her by the throat and carves the De Rolo crest into her forehead. Third, Grog cuts straight through her navel with his axe. Fourth, Keyleth uses Grasping Vine to wrap around her throat. Fifth, Vex fires two arrows: one at her heart, one at her mouth as she screams. By the end, she is missing an arm and has been entirely torn in half.
Enemy Mine: Cuts a deal with Vox Machina to undermine the Briarwoods' plan in exchange for letting her escape Whitestone as soon as they were done. Not that it stops her from breaking her end of the bargain and escaping in the middle of a fight.
Evil Counterpart: As a morally lacking genius inventor, she is very much Percy's mirror, representing all the fears he's ever had about his invention and the impact its creation will have on the world of Exandria. She even forms a contract with Orthax to take revenge on Percy, and bonds with it to the point where she grows a demonic arm.
Evil Genius: Was this for the Briarwoods during the Whitestone Arc, and continues to show off her genius during the Ank'harel Arc.
Fantastic Racism: Her brief speech to Vox Machina during their second encounter leans this way. She says that none of the other races have the adaptability and ingenuity that humans possess, and says that it's these traits that allow them to succeed where other races can only dream.
Flat-Earth Atheist: In the same speech, she decries religion as "archaic and unnecessary", despite living in a setting where gods are known to exist.
Foreshadowing: In her first onscreen appearance, there are several clues that the frail old woman in the Whitestone dungeons is not what she seems. She first claims to be a recent traveller from Drynna, but later says that she's lived in the surrounding lands for quite some time, and she refers to Delilah Briarwood by her first name, while most other residents of Whitestone refer to her as Lady Briarwood or the Lady. And despite her claims to be helpless and afraid, she becomes increasingly annoyed rather than frightened when Vox Machina refuse to unlock her cell.
From Nobody to Nightmare: After Percy decides to let her go, deeming her unimportant, she contracts with Orthax, puts Percy on her own List, and starts spreading the secrets to creating firearms purely to spite him.
Gadgeteer Genius: She created the distillery and the machines that manufacture the acid designed to quickly melt down the magical white stone beneath the de Rolo family castle. She also managed to fashion a gun similar to Percy's pepperbox, though it's more like a revolver in design.
Half the Man He Used to Be: When she finally meets her end at the climax of Episode 68, Grog cuts her in half horizontally with his Bloodaxe. This is, surprisingly enough, not the only thing that kills her.
Heel–Face Revolving Door: Formerly worked for Briarwoods until they no longer needed her and threw her in a dungeon. She then allies herself with Vox Machina to stop her former employers, but then betrays them and escapes while the party were occupied fighting Professor Anders.
Hero Killer: Successfully kills Percy during episode 68.
Loony Fan: She doesn't follow Percy everywhere, but she is extremely fascinated with both him and his work, collecting eyewitness accounts of him in action with his guns in hopes of replicating the device. She doesn't appear to have any major long-term plans for the gun replication, as the Briarwoods had no idea about it. When she does meet Percy face-to-face she smiles with a mix of fear and awe, as if meeting a personal hero.
Mad Scientist: The Briarwoods employed her for her scientific knowledge in creating an acidic compound that has been wearing away at the stone that's concealing the Ziggurat. She's also smart enough to replicate Percy's gun with only eyewitness accounts to work off of.
Master of Illusion: Cast Seeming to look like a frail old woman and trick Vox Machina into letting her out of her cell. She later uses an undisclosed spell to trick Vox Machina into an explosive trap using an illusory clone of herself and one of her allies.
Mirror Boss: As a Gunslinger, she has access to the same abilities as Percy, such as expending Grit Points to use special shots. She is also capable of casting low-level spells, much like Percy after taking the Magic Initiate feat.
Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: It doesn't matter who pays her, or what ulterior motives they may have, as long as she's paid and is supplied a chance to expand her scientific knowledge, she'll employ whatever efforts and experiments she deems necessary.
Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Doesn't Doctor Ripley sound like the name of an evil scientist that likes to torture people and little animals?
Punch-Clock Villain: In contrast to her bosses, Ripley has no ulterior motives for subjugating the town of Whitestone, owing nothing to Vecna. She's only in it for the money, the scientific challenge, and the opportunity to further her personal research.
Rasputinian Death: After killing Percy, Scanlan manages to trap her inside his Resilient Sphere. They all gather around her, release the spell and promptly butcher her in retaliation.
Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Ripley attempted to pull this before the rebellion of Whitestone began and when her part in raising the Ziggurat was finished, though she was betrayed by Professor Anders, caught by the Briarwoods and thrown in the castle dungeon. She pulls it again (successfully this time) when Vox Machina is fighting Professor Anders and manages to escape the castle in the midst of the rebellion.
Technician Versus Performer: As gunslingers, she is the Technician to Percy's Performer. The guns she makes are described as being simple and functional, "utilitarian" as Matt puts it. They lack the stylization and flourishes of Percy's work. Also, she perfers to use abilities that provide straight-forward increases to damage (at greater risk of a misfire) instead of the trick shots that Percy relies on.
There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Her fate at the hands of Vox Machina, in retribution for her killing Percy. She has her arm severed by Vax, the de Rolo crest carved into her forehead by Scanlan, is bisected across the navel by Grog, throttled by Keyleth's Grasping Vines, and for the final blow, Vex unloads one arrow into her heart and a second into her throat.^note
Took a Level in Badass: Goes from an imprisoned scientist that had to cut a deal with Vox Machina to get her out of the situation the Briarwoods left her in, to a dangerously effective planner that managed to outmaneuver the party in finding two of the Vestiges.
Torture Technician: Before Percy escaped Whitestone, she held him in the dungeons and tortured him for information about the castle and his family. Later, she captured him again when he made an attempt on her life prior to the beginning of the stream, this time unaware who he was, and had him beaten senseless and jailed. Vox Machina found him and broke him out (which was how the group first met him).
Villain Team-Up: She makes a pact with Orthax, who gives her the use of magic and refines her ideas for her guns in exchange for agreeing to help him kill Percy.
You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: After conducting the experiments and creating the acid that melted away the Whitestone, Dr. Ripley was thrown into the dungeons once she was no longer useful to the Briarwoods.

Orthax

Race: Shadow Demon

The "smoky entity", as it was previously known, who brokered a deal with Percival in his dreams, and gave him the knowledge of gunsmithing on the caveat that he use it to get his revenge on the Briarwoods and offer up the souls of those he killed. His true motives for doing so are unclear beyond a desire to inspire hatred and violence and thus grow in power.

The Corrupter: Percy's Sanity Slippage was partly his influence.
Dark Is Evil: He's a shadow demon that feeds off the suffering of mortals.
Deal with the Devil: The contractor for Percy. He inspired the creation of The List with the idea that Percy would use it to kill people, thus sending their souls his way.
Demonic Possession: He does this more subtly than most examples, slowly corrupting Percy and filling his soul with hate. Only Pike's Hollywood Exorcism saves Percy from being completely taken over.
Dreamweaver: First appears to Percy in a dream and makes sure to keep him updated on the progress of his quest via horrific nightmares.
Enemy Within: He's Percy's personal demon in more ways than one.
Faustian Rebellion: His plans, whatever they were, fall through when Percy begins to resist fulfilling the terms of the deal and asking some very pointed questions.
Fighting a Shadow: He is defeated in combat and the weapon he seems to have used as a Soul Jar is destroyed. And yet he comes back.
Hate Plague: When forced into the open, he inspires homicidal rage in opponents who fail their Wisdom saves, driving them to attack their own allies.
Living Shadow: Made of smoke, but still tall, dark and spindly like a long shadow.
Logical Weakness: Given that he's a shadow, he's weak to radiant damage. When Pike scorches him with her Guiding Bolt, he immediately turns Grog and Trinket on her.
Manipulative Bastard: He's been driving Percy to become more vicious and violent using terms that make it sound as if Percy is obligated, by his blood and the deal, to act that way.
Moving the Goalposts: The simplest way to describe the sixth name to appear on The List. He claims it was always in the terms of the contract, he just neglected to tell Percy until an appropriate moment... Matt and Taliesin decided that if Percy had successfully killed everyone on The List, six more names would have appeared on it in an endless cycle.
Off with His Head!: Trinket finally kills him by ripping his head off.
Our Demons Are Different: Specifically, a shadow demon. Unlike many similar beings in DnD, they do not form in the Abyss and have no place in the traditional hierarchy of the Nine Hells; instead they gain power by manipulating mortals and feeding upon the destruction those mortals sow. Orthax is unusually powerful for his kind, possibly from riding in Percy's wake.
Post-Final Boss: Vox Machina fights Orthax immediately after they defeat Lord and Lady Briarwood, the battle bringing Percy's story arc to a resounding climax.
Soul Jar: Even after his ostensible defeat, some of the smoky aura lingers around Percy until the Pepperbox is dissolved in acid.
Torture Technician: Not in the physical sense, but at long as he's been around he's been psychologically tormenting Percy into going down the path of vengeance with images of his family's fate.
Your Soul Is Mine!: Percy seems to believe that the souls of those who die at his hand go to Orthax as part of his payment (hence yelling "Your soul is forfeit!" at the Broker before killing him). This is confirmed in Episode 68, when Percy himself is killed by Ripley, who made her own deal with Orthax. Orthax begins to devour Percy's soul until he is resurrected.

Professor Anders

Professor Byron Anders

Race: Human
Class: Bard
Voiced by: Stephen Root

A bard who served as the tutor for the de Rolo family before betraying them to the Briarwoods. A name on Percy's List.

Asshole Victim: His gruesome demise helps show just how corrupted by vengeance Percy is becoming as he gets closer and closer to the Briarwoods. However, this guy is not only the worst kind of traitor, selling out the de Rolo family (whose children he'd helped educate) to Lord and Lady Briarwood, but a grade-A bastard, viciously taunting Percy about his family's deaths.
Boom, Headshot!: Percy doesn't mess with a winning formula.
Defiant to the End: He uses his last words to insult Percy and promise that his death will aid Vecna.
Evil Old Folks: He is an elderly human, and quite the evil traitorous jackass who worships Vecna to boot.
Eye Scream: Thanks to one of Vax's daggers.
Flunky Boss: As a bard, he isn't one for direct combat. That's why he has two Helmed Horrors ready to activate when, say, a certain knife-wielding half-elven rogue comes crashing through the door to his study.
Jerkass: Upon realizing who Percy is, he taunts him over his family's deaths and tells him he should have died like "a good de Rolo".
Kick the Dog: Before he even made an appearance, learning that Anders tutored Percy as a child before he betrayed the de Rolo family proves he's earned his place on The List (Liam/Vax in particular looks appalled). Then when he does make an appearance, he remorselessly slashes Cassandra's throat once he's done using her as a hostage and though the injury was almost certainly an illusion, she didn't know that and it may as well have been real for those witnessing it - Percy among them.
Mind Control: He uses several spells to this effect, even succeeding in getting Grog to attack Vax.
The Mole: The Briarwoods' man on the inside before they took Whitestone.
Properly Paranoid: According to Mercer, he keeps several documents of correspondence between the Briarwoods and Riskel Daxio just in case things go south in Whitestone and he needs to blackmail him. Given how quickly things went bad in Whitestone, this was a pretty good idea, but he never got the chance to utilize them. It does help Vox Machina expose and capture Daxio once they return to Emon, so nice job on that, Anders.
Talk to the Fist: Or more precisely, the bullet; in the middle of a rant, Percy jams the Pepperbox into Anders' mouth and blows the back of his head off explicitly "to shut him the fuck up."

Sir Kerrion Stonefell

Race: Human (Critical Role)/Duergar (Legend of Vox Machina)
Class: Fighter
Voiced by: Darin De Paul

A human fighter who serves as the Briarwoods' captain of the guard in Whitestone. Sir Kerrion is also one of the names on Percy's list.

Adaptational Ugliness: Described as having an almost boyish charm in the original campaign, but in the animated series is a fat balding man who is described as a disgusting, evil mess.
Adaptational Species Change: A human in the stream, but a duergar in the animated series.
Adaptational Villainy: Much more openly sadistic and cruel in the animated series.
The Brute: For the Briarwoods: his guard and lieutenants keep the citizens of Whitestone in line and ensure that their operations run smoothly within the city.
Boom, Headshot!: Percy blows his head off with the Pepperbox.
Curb-Stomp Battle:
- Vox Machina takes him and his guards entirely by surprise in his office, gaining a surprise round in which they pretty much wipe the floor with them.
- In the animated series, Stonefell barely gets one swing on Percy before the latter unloads all of his shots into him.
Starter Villain: His death officially starts the rebellion in Whitestone, and it is before he's had time to beef up his guard and set traps.

Count Tylieri

Race: Human Vampire

A human vampire serving the Briarwoods as a noble in Whitestone.

Adapted Out: Does not appear in the animated series.
Acrofatic: Still retains the weight he had in life, but his vampiric powers mean he can move like a snake.
Authority Equals Asskicking: The players were clearly expecting him to be the kind of noble who hides behind his guards, but then he fights Grog and Trinket in melee. Being a vampire helps.
Bad Boss: Treated his servants like crap, including poor Desmond. The Briarwoods supposedly killed him for this, but appear to have just turned him into a vampire.
Fat Bastard: Described as rotund and is certainly among the more vile servants of the Briarwoods.
Off with His Head!: Trinket bites his head off. Being a vampire, this only inconveniences him. Keyleth Wind-Walls him to prevent his escape, thinking him to be some kind of poison gas, and then Sunbeams him into dust when clued in by Percy.
Wall Crawl: He travels from a second floor banister to Grog on the first level foyer by jumping to the ceiling, crawling across it and then dropping next to Grog. The players think he is a spider-like thing before realizing he is a vampire.

Jazna Grebin

Countess Jazna Grebin

Race: Half-Orc

One of the new nobles of Whitestone under the Briarwoods rule.

Defiant to the End: Even captured and brought before the newly-liberated town of Whitestone, she remains totally unrepentant and contemptuous of Vox Machina right up until she's decapitated by Grog for her war crimes.
Off with Her Head!: Grog decapitates her with one swing of his great-axe after she refuses Percy's offer of mercy and redemption following her capture during the rebellion.
The Unfought: The only member of the Briarwoods' nobles who wasn't directly fought by Vox Machina during the revolution. Instead she was captured by the resistance "offscreen".

Goran Vedmeyer

Duke Goran Vedmeyer

Race: Goliath
Voiced by: Rory McCann

A Goliath warrior who serves the Briarwoods as one of the new nobles of Whitestone.

BFS: Wields a two-handed broadsword.
Butt-Monkey: Although Vox Machina is worried when they first learn the Briarwoods have a Goliath serving them, Vedmeyer is completely embarrassed over the course of the rebellion. First, Scanlan (a gnome bard) attacks his estate alone, burns it down and easily knocks him off its roof before making a clean escape. During the battle of Whitestone, Vedmeyer is captured by the townsfolk without the aid of Vox Machina and Percy's mercy allows him to live, but as a prisoner forced to help rebuild the town. Then he's made to compete in the arm-wrestling contest for the guards' amusement... and loses to a random guardswoman. Matt notes that all strength and defiance has gone out of Vedmeyer by that point.
Death by Adaptation: In the original campaign he is shown Cruel Mercy and lives out his life in indentured servitude to the people of Whitestone. In the animated series, a mob of Whitestone citizens hang him from the Sun Tree.
Know When to Fold Them: He has been defeated, captured, surrounded and his bosses are no longer around to help. Unlike Jazna, he accepts Percy's offer of mercy, and so he lives. He is not granted the same in the animated adaption, being shot by Percy and left to the mercy of Whitestone's resistance; his corpse is hung from the sun tree.
Worthy Opponent: Views Grog as one, but the feeling is not mutual.

The Chroma Conclave

In General

Diabolus ex Machina: Just when it seemed as though the lingering threat to his leadership had been resolved and Uriel's plan would go smoothly, these guys show up and start completely wrecking Emon.
Fisher King: The dragons each have incredible power over their own elements. So much so, that wherever they set up a new lair their very presence molds the landscape around them, from Thordak turning Emon into a volcanic crater, to Vorugal turning the ruins of Draconia into a frozen wasteland.
It's Personal: Each of the dragons has done its part to make sure someone in Vox Machina would want them especially dead, even putting what they did to Emon aside - Raishan decimated the Fire Ashari, Umbrasyl took up roost in Westruun, Vorugal killed Tiberius, and Thordak destroyed Vax and Vex's village and killed their mother.
Knight of Cerebus: Though the Briarwoods helped bring about a much darker and more personal change in the story, and indeed were very powerful opponents who threatened a great many people, the group was still confident that they could stop them themselves. The dragons, on the other hand, are the first foes able to cause such utter devastation on a whim, and the first ones to render Vox Machina completely helpless no matter what they try.
Mass "Oh, Crap!": The only normal reaction to four ancient dragons showing up out of nowhere and destroying the city.
Run or Die: After finding out just how hard it would be to damage one of the dragons, and how easily it could kill them all, the group wisely decides to get the hell out of there. Just for perspective, the toughest creature in the Monster Manual is the Tarrasque. Some fans deduced from the few rolls made before they fled that Vox Machina would be less screwed facing a Tarrasque than they were against those dragons.
Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: It's noted that chromatic dragons are inherently selfish creatures, and that they do not usually work with other dragons, especially ones of different colors. The fact that four ancient dragons of different colors came together to launch a coordinated assault on the city of Emon is a whole new league of bad news, even if it's a shaky alliance (Thordak had to physically assert dominance over Vorugal for the white dragon to actually follow his orders).

Thordak

Thordak, The Cinder King

Race: Red Dragon

Voiced by: Lance Reddick

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thordak.jpg

An ancient red dragon of great and terrible power. He leads the Chroma Conclave as its de-facto leader. He has terrorised the lands for many years until he was sealed away in the Elemental Plane of Fire until he was recently released.

Arc Villain: Of the Chroma Conclave Arc until his death in episode 79, with Raishan as a minor example of The Dragon Behind the Dragon.
Asskicking Leads to Leadership: Thordak is the biggest and nastiest of the dragons terrorizing Emon by a long way, and the others reluctantly submit to his orders. When Vorugal arrives at Grayskull Keep and starts handing the party their asses, Thordak shows up and tells him to get back to his duties by flying down, picking him up, and tossing him like a sack of potatoes. Keep in mind that Vorugal is an ancient white dragon.
Brought Down to Badass: After Vex destroys the heart crystal in his chest, Thordak loses his primal elemental powers and shrinks down to the size of a normal Ancient Red Dragon. A normal Ancient Red Dragon is still a terrifyingly powerful creature.
Chekhov's Gunman: That giant red dragon that Vox Machina spots in the Plane of Fire? That was Thordak. He is also the one responsible for burning down the twins' home and killing their mother.
Final Boss: Of the Chroma Conclave arc. It took not only Vox Machina equipped with all the Vestiges, but Kima, Gilmore, Jarrett, Raishan and a skyship's ballista bolts to finally take him down. Even then, they barely pulled it off.
Karmic Death: After destroying the lives and homes of so many, including members of Vox Machina, Vax'ildan is the one to kill him.
Vax: I hear my mother in the morning. Fuck you.
Kneel Before Zod: Thordak issues this decree to all those left alive in Emon, telling them to, amongst other things, submit to his will and abandon their faith in their guardians and gods.
Law of Chromatic Superiority: He's the red dragon of the group. He's the largest and by far the most powerful. The three other dragons defer to him and follow orders, albeit begrudgingly.
Names to Run Away from Really Fast: He's nicknamed the "Cinder King", and he more than lives up to it.
Orcus on His Throne: After taking up residence in Emon, Thordak is content to delegate authority to various minions and generals whilst he remains away from open conflict. Revelations in Episode 77 imply that he has a specific reason for staying in Emon that is pursuant to his ultimate goal. Episodes 79 confirms that he was protecting some altered dragon eggs. He also might have been working with (or for) someone/something, but that might as well has just been his insanity.
Playing with Fire: As a red dragon, fire is his specialty.
Punny Name: Thordak's name is based on a variation of Torsdag (meaning "Thor's Day"), the Scandinavian name for Thursday, which is when the show airs. First spotted by a fan on Twitter.
Red Baron: The Cinder King.
Sealed Evil in a Can: Trapped inside the Elemental Plane of Fire by Lady Allura's party.
Sanity Slippage: It's mentioned frequently by Raishan to the party that the power of the heart crystal in his chest is slowly driving him more and more insane as the days go on. His already vain and narcissistic personality is ratcheted up to full blown megalomania as he cements his rule over Emon. By the time he faces off against Vox Machina in combat, he's practically foaming at the mouth, barely able to keep focus on the party, and laughing like a maniac all the while.
Villainous Rescue: Completely unintentional, but both times the party has been saved from near death from the dragons attacking them, it's Thordak who drove the other dragons off.
Withholding the Cure: He supposedly has a cure for the soul curse that Melora placed upon Raishan, and promised it to her in exchange for releasing him from the Elemental Plane of Fire. However, his growing insanity has seen him renege upon the deal.

Raishan

Raishan, The Diseased Deceiver

Race: Green Dragon

Voiced by: Cree Summer

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/raishan.jpg

An ancient green dragon and member of the Chroma Conclave. The most mysterious and manipulative of the Conclave, due to her cunning nature and aptitude for magic.

Arch-Enemy: To Keyleth, who holds Raishan responsible for killing most of the Fire Ashari. Raishan argues that it was actually Thordak who killed the Fire Ashari, albeit after Raishan released him from the Elemental Plane of Fire.
Arc Villain: Ascends to this position following Thordak's death, but she doesn't hold it for long.
Batman Gambit: Her plan to call for Vox Machina's aid in killing Thordak relied entirely on her exploiting the behaviours of other people. She knows Vox Machina will likely kill her on sight, since she's a member of the Conclave. The only place they wouldn't attack right away would be Whitestone, since they are afraid both of collateral damage and drawing attention to themselves there. She also knows Thordak is too egotistical and insane to catch wind of her betrayal. When she pushes Keyleth's buttons during their first negotiation, even this could have been on purpose: because the rest of the party needs to calm Keyleth down, Raishan essentially forces them to think of reasons why it would be rational to listen to her proposal, and gets Keyleth to show her hand as the person who most wants Raishan dead.
Bitch in Sheep's Clothing:
- She posed as an orphan among the Fire Ashari for four years before she freed Thordak.
- She later infiltrates Whitestone in the guise of Seeker Assum, to offer a deal to Vox Machina where they are most vulnerable.
Cassandra Truth: The party argue over how much they can trust Raishan: is she being truthful because she needs their alliance and concealing her motive would serve no purpose, or is she playing an elaborate long game to achieve an unknown goal? Everyone refuses to trust her words except Percy, who argues that everything she says is true; he just thinks she's making massive lies of omission.
Consummate Liar: She's able to fool Thordak about her allegiance with Vox Machina. The heroes actually know she's this, so they refuse to believe anything she says.
Death from Above: She knows Meteor Swarm, a devastating 9th-level spell, and uses it to ambush Vax, Vex, and Keyleth when they pursued her after Thordak's death.
Death of Personality: Keyleth's successful Feeblemind spell erases Raishan's personality and intellect, leaving her a feral beast.
Enemy Mine: Teams up with Vox Machina to kill Vorugal and Thordak to further her own goals.
Everything's Better with Rainbows: She knows Prismatic Spray, but fortunately could not get it off in Episode 80 thanks to Scanlan's Counterspell.
Evil Sorcerer: One of the most powerful spell casters seen in the entire first campaign. Being an ancient green dragon with literal centuries of knowledge at her disposal, she has access to a wide variety of powerful spells that allow her to take on and survive an encounter with Vox Machina and some of their most powerful allies (though they had just come off of the fight with Thordak and were running fairly low on health and options). She's even able to use 9th level spells, a feat that not even Allura is capable of.
Foil: To Percy. They're both The Smart Guy of their respective teams, and they mutually acknowledge their "similar dispositions". Also worth noting is that Percy is Keyleth's best friend, whereas Raishan is the dragon Keyleth hates most of all.
Hero Killer: In two separate battles, she manages to kill Vex, Percy, and Scanlan— the latter twice, the second of which creates the Cliffhanger ending of Episode 82. Her poisonous breath also ended up killing Sovereign Uriel.
Inevitable Mutual Betrayal: Both she and Vox Machina acknowledge that their alliance will definitely end in them trying to kill each other. As Percy puts it, their negotiations boil down to whether they kill Raishan before Thordak or after.
Karmic Death: Despite being a massive poison spewing dragon, Raishan's greatest asset is her brain. So it's pretty poetic when she takes a Feeblemind spell from Keyleth that reduces her to nothing but a dumb beast and renders her unable to cast spells, after which she's finished off by Kerrek. For extra karmic points, it's also worth noting that she and Kerrek are Foils in regard to their relationships with Keyleth: Kerr is a Big Brother Mentor who helps Keyleth with her guilt over the Fire Ashari's fate, and Raishan is Kiki's Arch-Enemy, who killed them in the first place.
Manipulative Bitch: She's not just dangerous because she's a dragon. She's dangerous because she's playing the Chroma Conclave and Vox Machina against each other, and only time will tell which side ends up the victor. In episode 80, that time finally comes, and at the end of it all, Raishan emerges victorious.
No-Sell: Can cast Counterspell.
Off with Her Head!: A blow from Kerrek's Dusk Hammer literally vaporizes Raishan's head.
Poisonous Person: Like all green dragons, she can breathe poison.
Post-Final Boss: While Thordak's death resulted in the end of the Chroma Conclave's attack on Tal'Dorei, Raishan was the final member of the Conclave to be fought by Vox Machina, being a dangerous loose end that needed to be tied up by the party.
Red Baron: The Diseased Deceiver.
Sadist: Allura describes her as relishing in creating earthquakes that destroy those around her. This is a common trait for green dragons, who enjoy head games.
The Smurfette Principle: The only female dragon in the Conclave.
Squishy Wizard: Raishan is this compared to the rest of the Conclave. She uses far more powerful magic than any of the male dragons (casting a meteor swarm at one point) but she also seems to have fewer hit points. When Vox Machina attacked her after killing Thordak, Matt noted that she looked visibly injured despite the party having already used their most powerful abilities in the Thordak fight.
The Starscream: She fully intends to kill Thordak in order to get the cure he's hiding from her. With Vox Machina's help, she does. The party immediately tries to kill her as well before she can finish her Speak With Dead spell on Thordak's Body, but they end up underestimating her, which backfires on them spectacularly when she makes intelligent use of her spells and poison breath to wipe the floor with them. Raishan then escapes with Thordak's body and two intact dragon eggs.
Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: She and Vox Machina despise one another and neither is happy about teaming up, both parties fully expecting to come to blows when it's done.
Villain: Exit, Stage Left: Seeing the tide of battle turning against her, she flees when she starts getting close to death... but not before taking Thordak's corpse, and two dragon eggs, along with her.
Worthy Opponent: At the very least, she's smart enough to recognize that Vox Machina is strong enough to help her defeat Thordak. She seems particularly impressed by Percy, acknowledging their "close dispositions".
Voluntary Shapeshifting: Has a number of alternative forms which she can take.
Your Days Are Numbered: After slaughtering a group of druids and priests of Melora, she was inflicted with a soul curse that is slowly killing her. She tried every means of curing herself that she could possibly research, but all of her efforts have so far failed. Thordak came to her over twenty years ago and offered her knowledge of a cure in exchange for her servitude. To that end she was the one who established the Conclave, planned the destruction of Tal'Dorei, and released Thordak from his imprisonment.

Umbrasyl

Umbrasyl, The Hope Devourer

Race: Black Dragon

Voiced by: Matthew Mercer

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/umbrasyl_4.jpg

"You dare soil my home after what you've done below?! I will watch you dissolve before I suck down your liquid forms!"

An ancient black dragon and member of the Chroma Conclave. He claims Westruun as his domain, establishing his lair in the nearby mountains and collecting tribute from the Herd of Storms, who he subjected into becoming his enforcers.

Acid Attack: Like all black dragons, he can spit out a stream of highly corrosive acid.
The Brute: Heavily Implied by Raishan to have been more muscle than smarts, and so only useful as far as wrecking the conclave's targets.
Combat Pragmatist: Certainly seems more concerned about survival than winning a fight, and tells Shale that bravery means nothing in comparison.
Evil Sorcerer: While not as magic heavy as Raishan, Umbrasyl has access to the Darkness and Greater Invisibility spells.
Irony: He hisses "I will finish this" as he breathes acid over the party, badly injuring several and knocking both Trinket and Percy unconscious. However, by attacking Grog he triggered the berserker's Retaliation feature, which enabled the killing blow.
Red Baron: The Hope Devourer.
Sequential Boss: As a result of circumstances, Vox Machina has to fight him in three rounds. The first in an ambush outside of Westrunn, then during an aerial pursuit over the Bramblewood and finally in his lair.
Shot in the Ass: Pike sends a Guiding Bolt right up his ass, and his moment of shock at this sensitive area being lit up with divine magic is the only moment he is not serious.
Starter Villain: The first dragon of the Chroma Conclave to be confronted individually by Vox Machina, and Matt informs the cast afterward that the others are unlikely to be as careless as him.

Vorugal

Vorugal, The Frigid Doom

Race: White Dragon

Voiced by: Liam O'Brien

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/vorugal_2.jpg

An ancient white dragon and member of the Chroma Conclave. Following the attacks of the Conclave, Vorugal establishes his lair in the ruins of Draconia.

An Ice Person: Like all white dragons, Vorugal can breathe ice.
Blood Knight: White dragons are especially primal and animalistic, and Vorugal is no different, constantly seeking large and challenging prey to hunt.
The Brute: Is the most animalistic and thuggish of the Chroma Conclave. He serves Thordak in the capacity of a brutal attack dog.
Death by Irony: Like all white dragons, Vorugal revels in the thrill of the hunt; the killing blow is landed by Vex'ahlia, master ranger and Grand Mistress of the Grey Hunt.
Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Was in a courtship with Gelidon, another ancient white dragon known as the "Nightmare in Ivory," until his death.
Evil vs. Evil: Vox Machina weaken him by summoning a goristro demon to fight him for several rounds before entering the fight themselves.
Hero Killer: Is directly responsible for the death of Tiberius.
Monster Is a Mommy: Allura mentions that the nascent white dragon Vox Machina killed at the last Winter's Crest was likely the offspring of Vorugal, adding a personal touch to the beast's attack on their keep.
Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: Vorugal presented itself as the nobler counterpart to the Ravinites, claiming to want to free them from the oppression of the Draconians, but it is only a thin excuse the beast uses to hold power over them.
Red Baron: The Frigid Doom.
Slashed Throat: Raishan rips his throat out after Vex makes the killing shot with her bow.
Smarter Than They Look: While he is the most brutish and least intelligent of the Conclave, he is still very cunning in battle. He quickly realizes that he’s physically outmatched against Yenk, and so changes tactics to bombard the goristro with ice breath from the air. He similarly maximizes the use of his abilities in the fight against Vox Machina, putting up just as fearsome a fight as Umbrasyl, even despite Vox Machina coming in with two very formidable “allies”.

Brimscythe

Brimscythe, The Iron Storm

Race: Blue Dragon
Voiced by: David Tennant

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/brimscythe.png

A blue dragon and the youngest member of the Chroma Conclave. Killed before the stream began.

Adaptational Badass: In the original home game, Brimscythe was much younger and weaker than the other members of the Conclave in order to balance against the party's relatively low character levels at the time. In the animated series, Brimscythe is much larger than a "young" or "adult" dragon would be, implying that he is an ancient dragon like his peers. Later subverted as the other members of the Chroma Conclave were also considerably beefed up in both size and power, with it being made clear that Brimscythe was still at most an adult dragon.
Adaptational Villainy: The Legend of Vox Machina makes Brimscythe's villainy much more apparent in the pilot.
Ambiguously Evil: Initially in the original role-play sessions. At the time Vox Machina killed him, they had no idea whether he was supposed to be friend or foe; the battle only occurred because Grog "rage-looted" his gold. He was only revealed to be part of the Chroma Conclave much later.
Butt-Monkey: Despite being a member of the Conclave he is mocked by Vox Machina, with Scanlan even saying his name wasn't even worth remembering.
Kid Sidekick: To the Conclave. Officially stated to between "Young" and "Adult" by Mercer, he was the equivalent of a teenager when he fought Vox Machina (or the SHITs, as they were known at the time).
Large Ham: From the speech he gives in his human persona to the roaring proclamations he uses to threaten Vox Machina in his true form, David Tennant plays Brimscythe as a very theatrical creature.
Mole in Charge: In The Legend of Vox Machina, he is in charge of the Arms of Emon as General Krieg, and is laying waste to helpless villages and teams of adventurers in his true form. Using his position as a trusted military leader, he marches his own troops to the slaughter in order to weaken Emon's defenses for the Chroma Conclave's coming invasion.
Posthumous Character: His importance as a member of the Conclave is only revealed long after he dies in-universe.
Red Baron: The Iron Storm.
Shock and Awe: As a blue dragon, he is capable of using lightning breath. In The Legend of Vox Machina, Keyleth hits him with a bolt from a huge lightning storm, and Brimscythe No-Sells it.
Slashed Throat: This is how he dies in the original campaign. In The Legend of Vox Machina, this greviously wounds him instead, with Grog splitting Brimscythe's head open becoming the final blow instead.
Starter Villain: In the animated series, he is the first major villain to be fought by Vox Machina.
Violent Glaswegian: David Tennant massively hams up his usually subdued Scottish accent as Brimscythe, and the "violent" part really speaks for itself given how many people he kills in just two episodes of screentime.
Voluntary Shapeshifting: He disguised himself as General Krieg within Emon.
Your Head Asplode: In The Legend of Vox Machina, Grog splits Brimscythe's head down the middle with a greataxe while raging.

Westruun

Kevdak

Thunderlord Kevdak

Race: Goliath

Class: Barbarian (Totem of the Bear) / Fighter (Battle Master)

Voiced by: Ralph Ineson

Grog's uncle, who treated him and others of his herd with exceptionally tough love, and had it not been for a chance encounter with Wilhand, Pike's great-great-grandfather, Grog might have ended up very much like him. Instead, Grog refused to harm Wilhand and as punishment Kevdak and the herd beat Grog to near-death and banished him. Now, years later, Kevdak is taking advantage of the Chroma Conclave's attack on Westruun to exploit the surviving and terrified citizens. He currently possesses the Titanstone Knuckles, one of the Vestiges of Divergence sought by Vox Machina.

An Arm and a Leg: Percy and Grog both start taking aim at his arms, so as to forcibly part the Titanstone Knuckles from him. They manage to sever his left arm, and do enough damage to his right that it dangles uselessly for a while before it's healed by an ally.
Asskicking Leads to Leadership: As the strongest and most aggressive of a wandering herd of goliaths, their leadership falls to him.
Damage-Sponge Boss: He's made of hit points, and the fact that his Totem of the Bear barbarian trait halves all incoming damage (except for psychic) means it takes a tremendous beating to put him down for good.
Decapitated Army: After his death, the rest of the herd stops fighting and grudgingly accepts Grog as the stronger warrior, but only because Grog dealt the final blow. According to Matt, if anyone else had been the one to finish him off this trope would have been averted. The herd would have continued fighting Vox Machina even after their hit points reached zero.
The Dreaded: Grog both fears and despises him, more then dragons, more than vampires and more than beholders. Pike is wary of him as well.
Dual Boss: Greenbeard is the second biggest threat in Vox Machina's boss battle with him. Instead of a devastating damage sponge, Greenbeard is a healer and a mage.
Duel Boss: Grog challenges him to single combat but quickly realizes this was a bad idea and calls in the rest of Vox Machina to help.
Evil Uncle: Grog's uncle is a brutal guy, and looms larger in Grog's backstory than his own father.
Flunky Boss: After Grog calls for backup, the members of the Herd of Storms that are present become his backup. This includes archers, blademongers and Greenbeard.
Half the Man He Used to Be: Grog drop-attacks him with the Blood Axe and cleaves him vertically in half.
Hoist by His Own Petard: Grog kills him with his own greataxe.
It Amused Me: When bored, he breaks weaker people in half, because he can and it is the next best thing to a proper fight.
Karmic Death: Meets his end at the hand of the nephew he savagely beat and left for dead many years previously.
Make My Monster Grow: At the start of his battle with Grog, Kevdak (who is already a head taller than the eight-and-half-foot Grog) bulks up to about twelve feet tall. This turned out to be one of the magical effect of the Titanstone Knuckles.
Mark of the Beast: Kevdak's body is covered in tattoos from the neck down, and when he goes into his Barbarian rage, one on his chest in the shape of a bear briefly glows red. Vax cuts it off as after his death.
Offing the Offspring: He planned on publicly executing his son, Zanror, for attempted mutiny and then do the same to Zanror's pregnant mate.
The Patriarch: The leader of the Herd of the Storms, which was formerly his own relatives but later absorbed another tribe of non-goliath barbarians. However, Greenbeard is older than him and the older seer's words greatly influence him.
Pride: According to his son, the only thing stronger than his muscles is his pride. He refuses to admit he's made a mistake, and would rather be miserable.
Rasputinian Death: Over the course of his battle with Vox Machina, Kevdak is paralyzed and endures a huge amount of punishment while defenseless, loses one arm and most of another, is set ablaze by Keyleth's Fire Storm, gets riddled with bullets by Percy, and is finally finished off by Grog falling out of the sky and splitting him like firewood with the Blood Axe, his own weapon.
A Real Man Is a Killer: He told Grog to kill Willhand Trickfoot because this is something that he thought a proper Goliath barbarian is supposed to do. Somewhat surprisingly, Grog resisted.
Red Baron: "The Thunderlord."

Greenbeard

Seer Greenbeard

Race: Goliath

Class: Druid (Circle of the Moon)

One of the older seers of the Herd of Storms and serves beside Kevdak as his advisor. He has one eye that is completely clouded over, white, with a pus-filled socket that has been perpetually infected over time.

Adapted Out: Greenbeard does not appear among the Herd of Storms in The Legend of Vox Machina.
Brains and Brawn: He is Kevdak's seer and advisor, and is the one who orchestrated the occupation of Westrunn and Kevdak's submission to Umbrasyl.
Combat Medic: As a druid, he has both offensive magic and supportive magic. We see him cast Heal on Kevdak shortly before transforming into an Earth Elemental.
Dual Boss: He and Kevdak were designed to work together, according to Matt. Kevdak tanks and dishes out damage, Greenbeard keeps him healed and supports him with spells.
Energy Weapon: Though he never got a chance to use it in the fight, he knew the Sunbeam spell. His favored offensive strategy is casting it on himself before going into Earth Elemental from, becoming a laser-shooting Earth Elemental.
Gonk: He has a thick, moss-like crust that has gathered under his neck due to his infection, leading to his name of "Greenbeard".
Green Thumb: He's a Druid, and has access to several abilities Keyleth does, but we never see him cast something like Plant Growth.
Kill Him Already!: Attempts to have Grog execute Zanror after Kevdak's death. Grog instead executes him.
Manipulative Bastard: The reason for the Herd's occupation of Westruun. He fears the dragons so he gave Kevdak the idea of bending the knee.
Off with His Head!: When it looks like Grog is about to execute Zanror, he instead pivots around and chops off Greenbeard's head with Kevdak's Blood Axe.
Voluntary Shapeshifting: Can transform into an Earth Elemental.

Thar Amphala

Vecna

Vecna, The Whispered One

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/dla9q9mvaaainam.jpg

Featuring a lovely modified Nagash miniature.

Race: Human Lich

Class: Wizard

The Whispered One. The Undying King. An incredibly powerful lich whose goal is to become a god, and whose influence has shadowed Vox Machina since their dealings with the Briarwoods. Vecna is the Final Boss of the campaign, the Arc Villain of the last arc, and the Greater-Scope Villain of the Whitestone arc.

Anti-Magic:
- The ritual Delilah performed in his honor creates zones in which magic can not be used, as the orbs it spawned absorb all nearby magic back to Vecna himself.
- Vecna can easily nullify the spells of other mages as they're cast with Dispel Magic or prevent them from even casting the spell with Counterspell. Both of these spells require the caster to roll an ability check which most mortals can never have more than a +5 bonus to, but thanks to his unrivaled intelligence, Vecna has a +10 bonus to these rolls, allowing him to nullify even the most powerful magics more than half of the time. In practice, though, Vecna is only able to successfully dispel two magical effects in the entire campaign. Nearly every other time he tries to cancel out a spell Scanlan Shorthalt uses the same magic to cancel out Vecna's own power, and the one time Scanlan is unable to interfere Vecna's intelligence is too muddled by a hex for him to complete the counterspell.
Arch-Enemy: To Vox Machina, and also to the Prime Deities, since Vecna intends to replace them as the god of Exandria and has been working against them since before the Calamity. More specifically, it is known that he is directly opposed by the Raven Queen the Matron of Ravens and Ioun the Knowing Mistress, who work towards ending his reign of terror.^note
Beyond the Impossible: The players and characters alike react in shock and horror when Vecna uses multiple 9th level spells during his fight. As Matt points out, he's a god so he isn't restrained by the normal rules.
Matt: (In a happy sing-song voice) More than one 9th level spell, 'cause he's a fucking god.
Big Bad: He is arguably the main villain of Campaign 1, because his influence is felt in more than one arc. He graduates from Greater-Scope Villain in the final arc, beginning his attempt to conquer Exandria as Vox Machina races to find a way to defeat him.
Colony Drop: One of the most powerful spells in Vecna's arsenal is Meteor Swarm, which allows him to tear a rift in time and space and summon four arcane meteors that cause massive forty-foot explosions upon impact with the ground. He uses this spell three times in the final battle against Vox Machina. He opens the fight by sundering the tower the heroes just scaled to face him, again as soon as Grog returns to the battlefield, and a final time after Pike uses her most powerful spell to fully heal the entire party.
Contractual Boss Immunity: As the final boss of the stream, Vecna is immune to just about every status condition in the game. Vax can't poison him with his daggers, Keyleth can't blind him with her radiant spells, Grog can't grapple him even when enlarged, and most notably, he can't even be knocked prone. He also has five Legendary Resistances, when most enemies have no more than three.
Sam: How does he make love?
Dem Bones: He's a Lich, and his "miniature" is based on the death god Nagash's mini from End Times and Age of Sigmar, albeit with a different head (since Nagash has both his eyes).
Do Well, But Not Perfect: As Scanlan realizes just in time, doing too much damage will destroy Vecna's avatar and have him reform elsewhere. Scanlan can thankfully tell the group this before things turn too bad. Vecna was sealed on 10 HP.
The Dreaded: Him showing up basically sends Vox Machina into a panic, and it only gets worse as he demonstrates his power. Being able to casually kill off two of their party shows that at this point they have no option left but to retreat to literally anywhere he isn't.
Evil Sorcerer: The most evil and frightening one that Vox Machina has ever faced, possessing knowledge and mastery of spells so powerful that he is not bound by the conventional limits of typical spell casters. How far is he beyond these limits? He uses a total of three ninth-level spells in the course of his boss fight. To put that into perspective, all player classes that can reach 9th level spells can only cast one.
Faux Affably Evil: After his resurrection, Vecna acts chillingly friendly towards Vox Machina and has an oddly dry sense of humor for a millennia-old lich aspiring to godhood. This is all while proclaiming he could destroy them effortlessly should they oppose him, which he quickly backs up in their first battle...
Final Boss: He is the final villain of the first Campaign and the final enemy Vox Machina has to defeat.
Flat "What": Rather humorously for such an evil abomination, he has no response to hearing one of Scanlan's bardic songs for the first time other than saying "what" in an understated tone while tilting his head.
Flunky Boss: On the initiative count 20, Vecna can summon about half a dozen skeletons to arise from the ground and harry his enemies. Since he's an epic level boss going up against an epic level party, they're mostly just an annoyance, except that skeleton also has a chance to instantly kill one of those heroes if they can surround them while unconscious.
Godhood Seeker: His ultimate goal. He succeeds in becoming a god, but since Gods Need Prayer Badly, he lacks the followers to transcend his physical form and manifest a divine domain. As Ioun puts it, the quickest way for him to accomplish this would be to create "a miracle of terror" horrifying and destructive enough to inspire worship out of sheer fear. This "miracle" turns out to be the destruction of Vasselheim: the oldest city in Exandria, seat of power for most of the good-aligned religions, and a fortress that has stood strong for centuries against the forces of evil.
Greater-Scope Villain:
- Of the Whitestone arc, since the Briarwoods worship him and learned about necromancy from his works. His shadow falls over the rest of the series afterwards, exemplified with the black orb left beneath Whitestone from a ritual Delilah Briarwood learned from him.
- He continues to serve as this for Laudna's plotline in Campaign 3 as the power behind Delilah and by extension is ultimately responsible for raising Laudna as a Hollow One in the first place.
Healing Factor: Vecna's injuries rapidly heal throughout his final battle with Vox Machina, letting him regain 50 hit points every round.
Hero Killer: Vecna brags about how many heroes and adventurers he's slaughtered, and true to his word, the bottom of his tower is filled with their reanimated corpses. He also kills the twins. Vex gets better. Vax doesn't and ends up having to make a pact with the Raven Queen to come back to stop him, ending with Vax leaving forever.
High-Altitude Battle: Vecna never touches the ground once he ascends, forcing each member of Vox Machina to use every spell, magic item, and blessing they can to take to the air to defeat him. To simulate this on the battle-map, the DM puts Vecna and each player character on a transparent pillar and they need so many of them the final battlefield looks like a 3D chessboard.
Load-Bearing Boss: Most of Vecna's undead only exist through his continued focus and concentration, so without him, the entire army would collapse back into dust and bones. It's a Downplayed Trope, as there are portions of his forces that are regular mortals who can continue to exist without him. The moment he's defeated, his tower of Entropis collapses while the zombie titan that carried it becomes inanimate mid-step.
Make My Monster Grow: Vecna goes from a skeletal humanoid of average size to a 20-foot tall flying titan surrounded by a cloud of green energy for his final showdown with the heroes.
Marathon Boss: The longest boss fight in the whole campaign, as in almost the entirety of the show's longest episode is dedicated to fighting him.
Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: Claims that he wants to conquer Exandria to put an end to conflict, but it's blatantly obvious to everyone that he is just coming up with an excuse to try and have Vox Machina leave him alone.
Vecna: I come to play with the toys left by insolent, forgotten ancients and make this world into a new epoch. What this means, however, is an end to all. An end to borders and nations. There will only be the will of Vecna. So. Ask yourselves. You want peace? There is no peace, the way things are. You all bicker and stab and murder in the names of your mothers, your fathers. But this one? Everyone will live, and when they die, that need not be the end, either, under my banner.
One-Hit Kill:
- Vecna can point a finger and fire a thin, green beam that instantly disintegrates any person or object it touches. He uses this to great effect to reduce a paralyzed warrior to nothing and later to destroy an otherwise invincible force field created by Scanlan.
- Vecna can also fire a wave of necrotic energy as part of his Finger of Death spell, which doesn't knock creatures unconscious when brought to 0 HP, but instantly kills them and reanimates them as a zombie. We never see him finish anyone off with this, especially since Vox Machina have several blessings and magical items that make necrotic energy less effective against them.
- The most powerful instant-kill move in Vecna's arsenal is the ninth-level spell Power Word: Kill. He only needs to say a word and one creature with less than a hundred hit points dies instantly, with no means of resisting the effect. The power is so dramatic that the players develop the habit of reminding Matt that they're over 100 HP whenever Vecna casts a spell on them for fear that he's going to try Power Word: Kill on them. He used it in their first battle to kill Vex, although she was brought back to life shortly after.
Our Liches Are Different: Vecna is a skeleton with mastery over wizard spells and Resurrective Immortality provided by a Soul Jar, just like any classic D&D lich. Unlike other liches, Vecna is in charge of a whole city of undead and is able to teach his human followers how to become vampires and necromancers in their own right. Most unusually, however, is that Vecna remains a lich upon his ascension to godhood, meaning any attempt to kill him will only defeat him momentarily while his body regenerates in his phylactery.
Physical God: Ascends to godhood through the Ritual of Seeding. The "physical" part is important for two reasons: on the one hand he can be defeated in combat, but on the other hand he, unlike the Betrayer Gods and Prime Deities, is not sealed behind the Divine Gate, and can therefore directly influence Exandria.
Public Domain Character: One of the most famous villains in Dungeons & Dragons.
Sarcastic Clapping: One of the ways he mocked Vox Machina. Since he only has one hand, he had to cast Mage Hand to pull it off.
Sealed Evil in a Can:
- His ascension to godhood technically seals him on the Material Plane, because the Divine Gate prevents deities from leaving the Material Plane just as it prevents them from entering it from other planes of existence. This is why Vecna moved Thar Amphala to the Material Plane from the Shadowfell before the ascension completed.
- His ultimate fate, courtesy of the Rites of Prime Banishment, is to be locked away forever.
Smug Super: It's clear that Vecna thinks very little if anything of Vox Machina's attempt to stop him, but it's abundantly clear he has the power to make good on his threats. He even reacts to countering Keyleth's Firestorm with a taunting wag of his finger.
Skeletons in the Coat Closet: Downplayed. His miniature (based on Nagash) has robes featuring a wide array of bones.
Telepathy: He can speak directly to people's minds—and over considerable distance as well, as shown when in Episode 105 he thanks Vox Machina for showing him where Sprigg has been hiding, Vecna himself being thousands of miles away at the time.
Troll: He's particularly fond of screwing with and tormenting Vox Machina when he has the chance to do so, even when it isn't necessary. Keyleth tries to cast a powerful Firestorm spell? Wag his finger and taunt her as he counters it. The party finds Sprigg in his home? Telepathically tell them they lead him to Sprigg, before teleporting his forces to their location to kill him. The party heads off to gather materials to seal Vecna following his ascension? Project an illusion of his image to their location before gloating over the fact that he knows their plan and where they intend to go.
Villainous Breakdown: Over the course of his boss fight, his reactions to Vox Machina's struggles against him gradually change from amusement and mild annoyance to frustration and panic, and finally to outright terror and rage when it looks like he's going to lose. In particular, Scanlan's constant shutting down of his spells with Counterspell causes him to become more frustrated and angry.
"I hate to be repetitive, but I'm extremely frustrated with how hard it is to kill you!"
Walking Spoiler: His existence spoils much of the Briarwoods' motivations.
Wolfpack Boss:
- In his first battle with Vox Machina, Vecna floats above the battlefield and lets his two most powerful lieutenants (an epic-level necromancer and a Death Knight) do most of the dirty-work. He's barely injured by the end of the fight and has hardly used any of his spells while his lieutenants and Vox Machina are severely wounded.
- As Vox Machina plans to fight Vecna a second time, they worry that they'll have to deal with the same lieutenants again and begin to plan counter-measures accordingly. They ambush and kill the Briarwoods before the rematch and rush to the tower before either of them can come back to life, successfully averting the trope.
Worf Had the Flu: Downplayed, as he still proves to be Vox Machina's greatest challenge despite this, but Vecna in his avatar form was fought only recently after his ascension, meaning he was only beginning to discover the extent of his new godlike powers. According to Matt, had they failed to seal him away the first time, a repeated attempt would have seen them face a Vecna with limited omniscience, making him just about impossible to actually defeat on their own.
And Your Little Dog, Too!: Vecna loves to demoralize his enemies by invading their privacy and threatening their loved ones.
- He interrupts a war meeting to threaten Vox Machina's loved ones. He backs the threat up with details about the locations of each of those loved ones and what they're doing at precisely that moment.
- Just before the heroes confront Vecna for the last time, they discover a cruel trick that forces them to waste two spell slots. He followed through on those earlier threats, capturing Cassandra, Kaylie, and Gilmore and nearly tricking the group into killing them (as in, Pike had to Revivify the first two.).
  Travis: What did you do?! You Kevin Spacey from 7 mother fucker! What did you do?
  Matt: When you revealed to a god how close and dangerous you were last game, there were going to be repercussions.
- In the final battle, Vecna has one last trick to psychologically attack the heroes. He uses Velora, the little sister of Vax and Vex, as a living shield.

The Death Knight

Race: Undead

A mysterious undead knight in service to Vecna.

The Brute: Is a terrifying physical threat to Vox Machina, but doesn't seem to have much will of his own.
The Corrupter: Introduced Delilah Briarwood to Vecna as she sought to resurrect Sylas.
The Juggernaut: Waded through several rounds of Vox Machina's sustained firepower. He also had more hit points than any other humanoid boss Vox Machina fought.
Magic Knight: Comes with powerful Paladin spellcasting, which he uses to brutal effect during their first bout with Vecna by banishing Grog.
Name Amnesia: According to the post campaign wrap-up, not even he remembers his name anymore.

Other Villains

The Dread Emperor

Race: Human

Class: Wizard / Diabolist

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/dread_emperor.jpg

A transfer from D&D's Book of Vile Darkness, the Dread Emperor served as the Big Bad and Final Boss of the pre-stream campaign. A powerful spellcaster who kidnaps children for his own personal use and gain.

Big Bad: He was the main villain in the pre-stream days.
Canon Immigrant: An official D&D villain brought into Exandria. On a meta level, was also a D&D 3.5 creature ported into Pathfinder.
Charm Person: One of his powers is explicitly this uses it to capture and enslave the children.
Evil Sorcerer: Was a powerful spellcaster, attacking the party with "fierce magics".
Final Boss: The last enemy Vox Machina (then known as the SHITs) fought before the start of Critical Role.
Ink-Suit Actor: The official art drawn of him for the pre-stream recap makes him look very similar to Matthew Mercer.
Light Is Not Good: Wears golden armor and has golden eyes, and is one of the most vile characters Vox Machina interacted with.
Killed Offscreen: From the perspective of the livestream. Presumably the cast know what happened, but the audience only has hints.
Knight of Cerebus: One of the darkest villains of the campaign, and came during the more light-hearted pre-stream days.
No Name Given: Only known as "The Dread Emperor".
Noodle Incident: Due to being a pre-stream boss, his entire character and battle is this. Notably, the fight against him was the source of one of the biggest Noodle Incidents of the campaign: Keyleth killing a child.
Posthumous Character: He was killed before the stream began.
Small Role, Big Impact: Is not seen on-stream, was not seen in any of the party's pre-stream videos or vines, and was only seen briefly during the party's fight against him, but Keyleth accidentally killing one of his enslaved children haunts her for the entire campaign, serving as a roadblock in her Aramente.
Voluntary Shapeshifting: He could turn into a black-haired, golden-eyed boy at will.
When Trees Attack: Had at least one corrupted Treant on his island.
Would Hurt a Child: His entire character is built around harm to children. He would kidnap dozens of children and force them into slave labor within his mansion in the Astral Sea. During the SHITs's fight against him, he has four children chained by the neck to his breastplate, which he uses as human shields. One of the children is even accidentally killed by Keyleth, which haunts her throughout the rest of the campaign.

"Ace and Gary"

Race: Frost Giant

Two frost giants that the "Team 1" half of Vox Machina encountered in episodes 18 & 19.

The Brute: Being frost giants, it's to be expected that they would be really tough, not especially smart, and potential thugs for something bigger.
Heel–Face Brainwashing: Zahra the Tiefling Warlock uses Mass Suggestion to temporarily mind-control them over to their side to lead them to their quarry in episode 19. They then led the team to Rimefang's lair and were persuaded to aid the party in fighting their own master. Unfortunately, one of the two is frozen to death by Rimefang's icy dragon breath. As for the other, due to accidental friendly fire, the spell cast on him vanishes and ends up rejoining Rimefang's side, only to be smashed to death by Grog.
Last of His Kind: They were the sole survivors of their village after Rimefang destroyed it a long time ago.
Only Known by Their Nickname: Much like how they never got to know Tiny's real name. Due to that, they're given the names Ace and Gary (and sometimes Derek).

The Broker

Race: Tiefling (Bloodline of Asmodeus)

A bounty hunter hired by Lillith Daturai's sisters to caputre her. He encountered Vox Machina with two of his mooks in episode 25.

Alas, Poor Villain: The speed and brutality with which the party disposed of him was such that Matt made a point about feeling sorry for the guy.
Curb-Stomp Battle: Found himself on the receiving one of a very violent one. Clearly, he had no idea who he was dealing with.
Damage Reduction: His fiendish origins grants him a natural resistance to fire, which helps him survive Tiberius' Fireball.
Didn't Think This Through: Maybe it wasn't the wisest move on his part to attack his quarry with only two companions while she was in the company of seven experimented adventurers.
Fate Worse than Death: He is brought back as a zombie by Lillith to serve as an exemple for any future bounty hunter that would try to go after her.
Playing with Fire: As a tiefling of the bloodline of Asmodeus, he can innately cast the Hellish Rebuke spell.
Torso with a View: Courtesy of Percy. He gets repeatedly shot in the abdomen until all is left of midsection is a smoking hole. It didn't help that he attacked the party right after the Briarwood came back into Percy's life and pushed his Trauma Button.

Saundor the Betrayed

Race: Archfey

Voiced by: Sendhil Ramamurthy

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/saundor.jpg

"I have lived a thousand years and a day. I have seen many things; I can grant many gifts."

A powerful Archfey, and a figure of some importance in the Feywild. Long ago he was a mighty warrior, but after being betrayed by someone very close to him, his anger and bitterness corrupted his heart and turned him into a twisted remnant of his former self. In turn, his darker emotions shaped his control of the Feywild, and he is now the source of the Shademirk Bog's spreading blight, a cancerous tree. He is the wielder of Fenthras, Wrath of the Feywarden, one of the Vestiges of Divergence sought by Vox Machina.

Aloof Archer: Matt portrays him as a man who is typically stoic and focused, firing precisely from a distance. Fire he does. He uses Fenthras in his battle against the party, and is pretty damn good at using it - he's able to fire three shots each round, similar to Vex'ahlia herself, but also has the capability to fire up to three more arrows outside of his own turn, which he uses to devastating effect during the battle.
Bad Black Barf: After Vex'ahlia rejects his offer of a 'bond', Saundor briefly vomits more of the rotting black ooze that coats everything in the Bog.
Boom, Headshot!: After a long, drawn-out battle, he's dispatched by Grog and his Javelin of Lightning. The shockwave also gives him a severe case of Literally Shattered Lives (although he isn't frozen first), so if one didn't kill him then the other definitely did.
Does This Remind You of Anything?: The way he talks about his betrayal and overreacts to being rejected certainly reminds the players of a bitter ex-boyfriend who blames anybody but himself for his own misery.
Early-Bird Cameo: In a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment in Episode 59, a picture in Garmelie's sketchbook is clearly Saundor.
Fisher Kingdom: As an archfey, his mood has a powerful effect on the Feywild, so the bitterness and hate he felt from his betrayal twisted the landscape into, according to a druid communing with it, "a nightmare".
Green Thumb: As befitting a powerful Archfey, Saundor has control over the roots and vines that make up the inside of his tree.
- He can use the vines to move himself around his lair, and its bark to create armor.
- He can generate mind-altering mist from plant life inside the tree.
- Fenthras, his bow, can shoot a Bramble Shot that leaves the target grappled, and also has the ability to cause trees to grow out of the corpses of slain foes; thankfully that one wasn't demonstrated against the party. In addition he can cast several other druid spells such as Grasping Vine and Spike Growth.
"Get Back Here!" Boss: He can glide through the walls of his tree lair with ease and then snipe or cast a spell from the ceiling. This frustrates attempts to engage him in melee. Grog tries to climb vines to reach him, burns two turns with only an opportunity attack to show for it, and takes falling damage for his trouble.
If I Can't Have You…: His focus is on Vex'ahlia in the battle because she refuses to give him her heart, due to it belonging to someone else.
Logical Weakness: A line from an unused Hag encounter in Matt's notes implies Saundor, as a being of memory, is weak against Psychic damage.
Murder the Hypotenuse: The treants he summons during combat repeatedly attack Percy, and Saundor also aims an attack at him once Vex falls unconscious. Notable in that Vex never told Saundor to whom her heart belonged—much like with the details of Vex's backstory, Saundor somehow knew.
Not Good with Rejection: When Vex rejects his offer with an arrow, he focuses on her throughout the battle, even saying, "you had your choice!" when targeting her with a Blight spell.
"Not So Different" Remark: Tries to claim he and Vex'ahlia have both been hurt by those closest to them and have gone unloved by those they seek respect from, thus they should be allies. She responds accordingly.
Red Baron: The Betrayed (though, like K'varn, this wasn't specifically mentioned). It was formerly "Saundor the Vibrant." It is revealed out of the show, in an interview with Matt Mercer, that Saundor the Betrayed is the 'echo' of what is left behind of Saundor the Vibrant.
Talking the Monster to Death: According to extra-campaign material, if the party had parlayed with the hag who lived in the Shademirk Bog's hut, then they would have learned enough about Saundor to take a wits-based approach to dealing with him. One proper conversation, and he would have withered away on his own.
To Win Without Fighting: Saundor wasn't kidding when he said he wanted a bond with someone. If Vex had accepted his deal, then he would have "loaned" her Fenthras without a fight. It would also mean accepting him as her patron for the rest of the campaign, along with certain stat changes.
Tortured Monster: He veers between somewhat pitiable and incredibly creepy in his talk with the party. He was betrayed, and now he is lonely, and wants someone who can understand him. He sees a kindred spirit in Vex, and wants her to form a "bond" with him, which implies becoming a creature like him.
Walking Wasteland: Technically. He never leaves his tree, but it's from there that his hatred causes the entirety of the Shademirk Bog to form, as it constantly spews a vile substance that corrupts the natural wildlife and coats the entire landscape, including the trees themselves.
We Can Rule Together: His offer to Vex'ahlia; he requests a 'bond' of an unspecified (implied to be romantic) nature with her in return for him granting her the power to protect her family and her home. She turns him down because her heart "belongs to someone else".
When Trees Attack: He's accompanied in battle by two Treants, not to mention the obvious fact that he himself is an attacking tree.
Yandere: After Vex rejects his offer of a "bond", it is implied that he plans to kill her and then trap her somehow in his cancerous tree, so that she would have to keep him company. It is later revealed that Fenthras can create trees from the corpses of those it slays.

Yenk

Race: Goristro

A large, hulking and violent Goristro from the Abyss that had devoured the Spire of Conflux. He was summoned to help the party combat Vorugal.

Gonk: Extremely large, covered in fur and had bony protrusions with sharp teeth and horns curling over his head.
Half the Man He Used to Be: His eventual fate, Grog grabbed him by the legs and slowly tore him in two. This is how Travis described his HDYWTDT, "I wishbone him."
Sapient Eat Sapient: Devoured the Spire of Conflux alongside its original owner.
The Berserker: Yenk is very violent and aggressive and was easily convinced to fight Vorugal after being dominated. He even continued after the spells effects were broken.

Utugash

Race: Pit Fiend

A powerful and corpulent Pit Fiend encountered by Vox Machina in the city of Dis.

Acrofatic: His massive weight does not seem to hinder his characteristic Pit Fiend speed.
Arc Villain: Of the Nine Hells Arc
Fat Bastard: One of his primary character traits. It's even a power of his! His Corpulent Form ability allows him to crush any creature he lands on.
Hero Killer: Utugash actually manages to inflict the first permanent death Vox Machina had suffered when he killed Doty I without Tary being able to repair him, with Tary having to build an entirely new Doty.
Karmic Death: The killing blow on him is inflicted by Tova, who was imprisoned and suffered brutal torture at his hands.
Playing with Fire: Surrounded himself with a wall of fire during the fight, and dies soon after leaving it.

Ulugrah the Kraken

Ulugrah the Requisite

Race: Kraken

The Final Boss of Keyleth’s Aramenté, Ulugrah is an immensely powerful entity lurking just through the portal to the Water Plane that the Water Ashari guards.

All There in the Manual: The kraken was unnamed during its appearance on the stream. It's name and title, Ulugrah the Requisite, was revealed in the Chronicles of Exandria Volume Two: The Legend of Vox Machina art book.
Cthulhumanoid: His official art in the Chronicles of Exandria art book and his entry at the Critical Role Wiki depict him as having a large humanoid body, including legs, but with tentacles where his arms would be and a squidlike head.
Damage-Sponge Boss: Cutting off his tentacles doesn't harm him, as they'll just regrow after a few days. He also takes a lot of punishment from the party, including Grog repeatedly bashing his insides, but Matt Mercer never describes him as visibly injured.
Do Well, But Not Perfect: Killing the kraken would cause the magic holding Vesrah afloat to fade and would doom the city to slowly sinking, unless they could find another one.
Eye Scream: It threatens Grog after it's prevented from coming through the portal to the material plane, but Grog smashes it in the eye as a final bit of defiance.
Hero Killer: Vax dies when the kraken swallows him. Pike resurrects him when she joins the group after they return to the material plane. He also seemingly killed Keyleth's mother when she tried to retrieve his lodestones for her Aramente.
It Can Think: Though it initially comes across as a mindless animal, the kraken is actually very intelligent and can speak to others via telepathy. It doesn't attempt to speak to the party until they pique its interest later in the fight.
Kraken and Leviathan: He's a very large, very malevolent and very powerful sea monster with squidlike features. Much of the fan art depicts him as a traditional giant squid, although the Chronicles Of Exandria art book gives him a large humanoid torso and legs.
Marathon Boss: Comes in as the third longest fight of the entire campaign, and was the only one that dragged on for long enough and was enough of a slog that both the players and the DM genuinely stopped having fun with it and just got utterly exhausted.
Mass "Oh, Crap!": The Water Ashari react this way when Ulugrah tries to follow Grog back through the portal to the material plane. They all attack him at once with Grog joining in, and finally repel him. He then tries to threaten Grog, but Grog simply bashes him one last time with the dwarven throwing hammer.
Shock and Awe: It can channel electricity through the water, a new ability for krakens in 5E.
Swallowed Whole: Capable of doing this to anyone caught in its tentacles, causing them to take Acid damage every turn. This ends up doing Vax in.
Tentacle Rope: It can grapple one creature per tentacle, and makes good use of that throughout the fight to greatly limit the party's options.
Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth: It swallows some of the party, until Grog gives it indigestion by smashing its insides. He does this three times.
Underwater Boss Battle: Part of the difficulty of the fight. Percy is hit the hardest, as being underwater prevents all his guns from working, rendering him nearly useless.
Unsportsmanlike Gloating: The art book reveals it brags to anyone it encounters in the Plane of Water about its "victory" over Vox Machina. Never mind that it was a tie at best, since Vox Machina weren't trying to kill it and actually managed to escape with the lodestones they needed to keep Vesrah's magic going.
We Will Meet Again: Promises this to Grog. Has yet to deliver on the threat.

Quackthulhu

Race: Aberrant Duck

A duck corrupted by an aberrant meteor which became lodged in its back. It is encountered by the Darrington Brigade during their quest to retrieve the fallen star.

Animalistic Abomination: An ordinary duck that was mutated into a gigantic abberation by a strange glowing meteor.
Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: It's a gigantic, tentacled duck.
Brown Note: Its "Soul-Wrenching Quack" is able to paralyze any one who hears it.
Combat Tentacles: It has several tentacles growing from its body which it can use to bludgeon its opponents.
Final Boss: It serves as this for The Darrington Brigade one-shot.
Power Crystal: The crystalline meteorite lodged in its back is the source of its corruption.
Shockwave Stomp: It's able to slam into the ground, creating a shockwave which forces nearby creatures away from it.

Characters / Critical Role Villains

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